


The Mirrorscape

by avengercat



Category: Avengers (Comics), Captain America (Comics), Iron Man (Comic), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Cap_Ironman Reverse Bang Challenge, Cap_Ironman Reverse Bang Challenge 2015, Civil War (Marvel), Civil War Fix-It, Dreams and Nightmares, Earth-3490, Established Relationship, Extremis, Fluff, Getting Back Together, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Marvel 616 (Freeform), Mind Control, Multiverse, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Soulmates, but more like established breakup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 00:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 42,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4242945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avengercat/pseuds/avengercat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Civil War, Tony begins dreaming of a mirror with which he can talk to Steve. There's no way that it's really his Steve though, right? Steve's dead, isn't he? Meanwhile, Red Skull and the Mandarin work on their dastardly plots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xanhawk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xanhawk/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Orbs of Reflection](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4104283) by [xanhawk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xanhawk/pseuds/xanhawk). 



> This is a re-telling/fix-it of the comics beginning from approximately The Death of Captain America to the start of Secret Invasion. Some canon divergence with timelines and events moved about and/or ignored. For sections that pull heavier off some issues, credit for the quoted dialogue goes to Marvel and their compelling writers.
> 
> Unending thanks to my lovely artist [Xane](http://xanehawk.tumblr.com) for cheering me on. I love scheming with you <3 And thanks to her and the fantastic mods for their amazing understanding in the face of my trashcat tardiness in finishing and posting this.
> 
> Broken into chapters post-writing for easier digestion :)

He honestly doesn’t know where it began. How the best thing in his life unravelled into the putrid mess of faux morality, where what was legally right trumped ideals. This is the world he lives in now though, a hell of his own making.

\--

A world without Steve Rogers. Everywhere is either too quiet or too loud, and always abrasive. Knowing that he is to blame, that’s the kicker isn’t it? Steve dying from illness or on a mission, that would have been awful, but those wouldn’t have been his fault. He could have been on scene but he was the one who couldn’t face Steve face-to-face on trial. He’d noticed the satellite and cameras had been turned to create blindspots and left them alone, thinking that maybe some Nick Fury plot to free Captain America would succeed. Optimistically, he’d thought that Steve would then go into hiding, and while Steve would hate it, he’d be living life instead of stuck behind bars he didn’t deserve. He’d thought wrong.

On the bad days, he half hopes that one of the many people who professed to hate him will come and put him out of his misery, take revenge on him for failing Steve. He knows he won’t let that happen though, he’s not that much of a coward, and he has promises to keep. People are counting on him to lead them to the future. The world is fragile, but filled with so much potential it makes him ache. He feels like a father encouraging his child to grow, trying to guide it in the right direction, playing dictator when required. Shaping the future and making a better tomorrow, this is his life’s work even more than being Iron Man.

\--

The last time he’d seen him this close, there’d been bars and his armor between them and Steve had still managed to wound him. Tony had come by the cell to see if there was still a chance for reconciliation; if the surrender had meant hope that they were on the same side again. Steve hadn’t even needed to speak to dispel the illusion. Tony had seen the angry frustration before, the same look Steve had directed at him over the months of war. Figuring he owed it to him, he’d stayed for the tongue lashing, wincing at the barbs that struck home but firing back anyway. It was like every time they’d argued about things they didn’t see eye to eye on. The thing that made this time different, besides the bars and consequences to come, came at the end.

“Was it worth it? Was it _worth_ it?! Tell me!” Steve had demanded, biting clear. He’d been asking about the war, but when he’d repeated himself, he’d also been asking about them: Steve and Tony. It was the only question that he hadn’t seemed to know what Tony would say in response. Like the answer was important. 

“Well, you’re a sore loser Cap,” he’d said, deflecting. Steve had sat back on the bench then, disappointment weighing him down like his surrender hadn’t. And Tony had walked away. 

He hadn’t known the answer consciously at the time but he knew it now. Too late for Steve to hear. A single truth. 

“It wasn’t worth it.”

\--

Tony gets the alert before anyone else because he’s Director of SHIELD and decides it’s something he needs to take care of himself. He tells the other Avengers to go ahead of him to deal with Tiger Shark. Rewinding the Helicarrier feeds he suspects magic was in the equation and sighs. He’s really getting tired of that trick. At the same moment that Wolverine popped up on the feeds, Crossbones appeared instantaneously beaten, still in his cell. Guiltily, he takes pleasure in the sight, wishing he could have done it himself. But he has to stay above board with the villain as Maria had been reminding him just a few minutes before.

He meets up with Hank Pym on the way to Steve’s body. He knows that’s where Wolverine was headed. When they arrive, Wolverine is examining the body and coming to the same conclusions he did. It’s Steve as much as they all wish it wasn’t.

Snarling, Wolverine accuses him of keeping the shield for a new Captain America. It’s true, as much as it wasn’t Tony’s idea at first. The shield was being held separately as the quiet search for a new Captain America went on.

Wolverine hits the planned media spin right on. Steve Rogers is dead but Captain America lives on. Within a day of the shooting, SHIELD publicists had appeared to talk to him, asking him if he had some candidates already, like he’d ever planned for Steve’s death. As if he had a shiny new replacement to win public favour all picked out. One had the audacity to suggest a clone, ‘but don’t call it that, the people still remember the Thor disaster.’ Tony had only just refrained from laughing in his face in disbelief. As if cloning Steve Rogers was possible. His goodness didn’t come from biology. 

Until that ambush, it hadn’t even occurred to him to look for a new Captain America because to him, the name was synonymous with Steve Rogers. Listening to the publicists though he’d realized that maybe, though Steve Rogers was dead, Captain America was not. It would be a soothing thought for the public.

As Wolverine heads for the door blocked by Hank’s giant hand, he explains how Tony’s going to let him go. He’s right again. It was better that the rebel superheroes know Steve’s death isn’t some ploy. Tony hasn’t lied, wouldn’t lie, not about this, but they don’t trust him anymore. They might never trust him again. It’s unlikely they’d trust any registered super now. Tony’s still rather pissed that Carol lied to Jess about it to try to bring her in. Better they think badly of him for what he’s done rather than what they might think he’s capable of. He would never fake Steve’s death to keep him locked away for experiments, but after the Thor clone, they probably wouldn’t put it past him. Wolverine’s seen the truth now though, and the fugitives will believe him.

“Stark. If I find out you had anything to do with Cap’s death...I’ll kill you,” Wolverine tells him as he stalks out the door.

Tony would lie down on the block and expose his neck were it true.

\--

[You’re trespassing. I don’t know who you think you are –] He warns the figure in a hoodie. For the briefest moment as the man turns Tony only sees blond hair and thinks _Steve?_. His heart skips a beat, then the moment’s over and a new one begins because he’s looking at another ghost. He catches the projectile his scanners warn him is being fired his way. Arrow in hand, he stares through his impassive faceplate at Clint Barton.

They talk. Or rather, he asks questions that the man calling himself Clint says he doesn’t want to answer. Then, the guy asks him what happened with Steve. So Tony knocks him out and takes him to the Helicarier to do some tests. The results and his gut tell him it really is Clint Barton, somehow back from the dead. 

Once Clint’s reawakened, he starts with some trademark griping and Tony falls in with insouciant responses. The man’s as much as an ass as he was before; it feels almost like old times. They both have goals for this encounter though. Clint wants answers. Tony wants to explore an idea.

The shield is the symbol of Captain America but it's not what made the man a superhero. He has it in a vault as secure as his armor. He runs his hands over the metal. It's as stable and familiar as ever and he hates the irrational thoughts that go through his mind. That the shield feels as lonely as he does without its partner.

While the tests were being run, it had occurred to him that Clint might serve as the perfect solution to the problem. Clint was a proven hero and Avenger. He’d known Steve so he’d honour and respect the flag. He might be irreverent, but he cared deeply, hence why he’d called Tony out for answers. The Hawkeye name and bow already been passed down ( _by Steve_ his traitorous brain whispers), and Clint had gone by other names before, searching for his place in the world. The checkpoints lined up.

It doesn’t take much to get Clint to try throwing the shield, and unlike the others Tony’s tested, he can actually catch it. Clint says it’s just marksmanship but Tony thinks it’s more and says so. Hitting the point of the exercise on the mark, Clint deduces what’s being offered. Since he doesn’t seem completely against the idea and Tony’s getting an alert of an unregistered superhuman holding up a gas station, it seems like a good time for a field test. In Captain America’s suit and with his shield, Clint really does look the part. 

They’re not the first to arrive but Tony thinks it’ll be an easy sell when he sees two Young Avengers, Hawkeye and Patriot, have arrived before them. They’re kids against an adult criminal and they look like they’re having trouble. With Clint seeing what he was seeing, it should be an easy sell. When he and Steve had watched the Young Avengers, he’d been the one to suggest they needed training. Tonight after the bad guy was taken care of, Iron Man and Captain America would step in and arrest the kids to be registered and trained. Symmetry. 

Of course things don’t work out the way he hoped. The kids manage to take out the super holding up the gas station and since Cap’s looking reluctant, Iron Man steps up to the plate to announce their need to register. Catching Hawkeye’s arrow, he realizes a picosecond too late she’d somehow managed to lay hands on an EMP tip. He falls out of the sky as his suit reboots in defense. Served him right for not working more on his shielding tech. As fate would have it, in the seconds he was out, the kids managed to sway Clint’s decision. It feels like some awful déjà vu to see the suit and shield turned against him.

“Clint,” he starts, flipping the faceplate up as the kids bolt. They’re not as important, he’s sure they’ll pop up again.

“You almost had me fooled,” Captain America begins. He knows it’s Clint but the words still hurt. They echo with Steve’s idealism and it’s two ghosts now that are disappointed in him. Two ghosts that seem don’t understand that he did what he had to do because it was the only way. 

Still, he tries. “America needs a Captain. Think of how comforting it would be for the people.”

“The people? Or you,” Clint pushes the cowl back to retort. He pushes the shield into Tony’s hands and turns down the offer. “I’ll mail back the suit once I get where I’m going.”

As Captain America walks away from him again, leaving him alone in the alley, he wonders when they’d started being on opposite sides of every argument. 

\--Steve--

He remembers the cuffs, the angry, indignant crowd, the little laser dot. Sharon's face. Then nothing. 

He's skinny and small again, trying to hide his asthmatic gasps to pass the enlistment physical. 

He's hiding his nervousness as he's led to the metal casket that will not be his death, but his rebirth, though he doesn't know it at the time. He sees Dr. Erskine, doesn't move fast enough to warn him before he's ushered in. He feels the bite of a hundred beestings as the needles sink in, hot agony as the machine activates the serum. He doesn't think he'll survive, it's like his skin is being flayed off, like his insides are swelling and bursting. He's going to be a spattered mess of blood and brains and guts. He'll have to be scrubbed out of the nuts and bolts and hinges of the machine before the next guinea pig steps in. He's not stupid, he knows what experimental means. He knew how this might end. He has prayers, a need to be of use and trust in a doctor with kind eyes and that was why he was here. 

Then that beautiful, blissful moment when everything, when he, snapped into place. Where there was no pain and he thought he might be dead but why would he be out of breath at the gates of Heaven? And he _is_ breathing. He sucks in a breath and is amazed by how easily his lungs fill, how his inhale can go on and on. Is this how healthy folks felt when they were told to take a deep breath? Not staggered stages, but smooth inflation? 

The coffin opens and the air is cool against his fevered body. He's helped out on shaky, _muscled_ legs. He looks down and doesn't recognize himself in the giant body that looks like it belongs to one of the Greek statues he learned about in art school. The shock fades into wonder with every moment. 

He feels good. Free, like he could run and jump and not end up a wheezy mess in moments. The world seems to have more colour, is sharper and clearer than ever before. This is feeling healthy in a way that drives home just how sick he'd been. He's grateful with the realization, ecstatic that this will be the experience for more people to come. He looks up to thank Dr. Erskine and it's like he has two minds. One living life firsthand, the other shouting, wanting to remedy his past failures. 

He doesn't see the bullet cut through the air but he watches the minute flare of Dr. Erskine's coat where it goes in and red blossoming out in slow motion. He was helpless then and he's doubly helpless now.

He's doing basic training and the difference between before and after serum is still incredible. 

He's meeting the unit he'll be undercover in. Playing clumsy is easy, just a matter of moving without paying attention to his new body. 

He's sneaking out for a secret mission, heart pounding even though it's sanctioned. He's taking down the enemy, retrieving data and items, easing the way for his unit to press forward. 

He's in the middle of what was a battlefield and devastated for the first and nth time by the waste of life. 

He's sitting with a melancholy group of soldiers around a campfire. They discuss the little nothings that mean something to them. They discuss what they'll do when they go home. 

“People say your life flashes before your eyes before you die,” some rookie kid says, directing the conversation where everyone else was trying to forget. He seems to realize his faux-pas, voice faltering as he asks his question. “Do you think it’s true?”

Steve wonders what he’ll see. Passenger Steve thinks that if this is his flash, it’s sure taking a long goddamn time. If he’s headed to some form of afterlife, he’d like to get there already.


	2. Chapter 2

Today is the funeral for Steven Grant Rogers, aka Captain America. The first of two. He can get through it. It’s not even Steve’s body in the casket, just a decoy. The real one will be interred where Steve knew so many years of peace, up in the Arctic where the Avengers found him all those years ago.

It feels unreal, being here, seeing all the people whose lives Steve touched, knowing there are millions more who couldn’t make it. Knowing there were superheroes that want to be there but aren’t attending because if they were seen, they’d have to be arrested. His eyes blur. He takes a breath. _Hold it together. Say what should be said. Pay your respects. Steve deserved it._

He’s the first of the pallbearers up to speak. Every step up the podium is a homage and harder to take. He feels like Atlas, carrying the world on his shoulders, bowed with responsibility. He looks out through the rain and he sees how the swath of attendees stretches out as far as the eye can see. He’s faced crowds before; he’s been doing it since he was young and naïve. They’re quiet but he can feel it, the weight of their judgement, how they all know. Steve Rogers is dead because of him. They look at him and wonder why the murderer is the first to speak at the victim’s funeral. Do they think he’s trying to air his guilt? He doesn’t deserve forgiveness. He never has. He knows that.

“Welcome. I...I...um…” he falters realizing what he planned to say is both hopelessly inadequate and private, not words for the public here today. Steve deserves a proper speech though. Something that would voice the sorrow of all. Pare the pain down to words unworthy of the worthiest man.

“It…” If he could think up some new words. His brilliant brain is failing under pressure for the first time in decades. Words came so much easier when he was talking about something quantifiable. He needs to apologize, but it’s too late for apologies. The one who needed them is lying cold.

And there’s nothing he can do because he can’t bring back the dead and he can’t take Steve’s place.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way.” His voice cracks.

He breaks. Unable to say another word, he returns to his seat, Sam taking his place behind the lectern. Tony’s not even crying properly, still too clogged with emotion. He listens as Sam speaks, honest and true, bringing the mourners stand together in unity and understanding of the loss they were suffering. It’s a reflection of the kind of person Steve was, an inspiration even in death.

He finally decides it there, seeing all the lives Steve touched. There will never be another Captain America. 

\--Red Skull--

“When Agent 13 damaged the machine in those moments she broke through the conditioning, Captain America became lost to us. He’s somewhere, adrift in the time-space stream. It may be possible to locate him, but it will take time and some luck,” Zola declared, nasal voice as irritating to Red Skull as the news.

“How long do you approximate?” he inquired, glaring at the scientist.

“It is no simple matter Skull!” Zola hissed.

“You do not know then. Can you do it still?”

“Of course!”

“It is no insult. Simply a matter of practicality” he cut in and thought quickly, solution coming to mind. “Perhaps this can serve as an opportunity. I’ve been meaning to assess Doctor Doom’s potential. You may perform the task under the guise of enlisting his aid.”

“I am not some minion to be ordered about!”

“On the contrary, Zola. It is a task of the highest order. I would do it myself but I believe I can trust your assessment.”

The head harrumphs but looks to be warning up to the idea.

“Consider it,” Red Skull suggests as he departs the room. His head was beginning to hurt and the seed of flattery had been planted. Zola’s ego would inflate and he would be easily guided in the right direction. Like a balloon on a string.

In the privacy of his office he fights with the mind of the man who’d once owned this body. The Russian businessman screams obscenities at him as Red Skull’s boot stomps on his mental back, putting him back in his place. Skull scowls with the man’s features when the battle is won again, displeased by the resistance and Zola’s news. 

The longer his plans are put off, the weaker this body would grow. Too long and he’d have to find a replacement to tide him over until the body of Steve Rogers was available. The gem which had strengthened his mind and given him the ability to inhabit another took a dear toll on the host’s mind and body. He had to be cautious, if either aspect of his host were to die, it was likely he would too, trapped by their tie. He had no intention of allowing that to happen. There was change coming, even greater than Zola knew. Beautiful, exquisite change, and he had to acquire a form that could weather it. 

With a super-serum and Extremis enhanced body, he would be _unstoppable_.


	3. Chapter 3

He throws himself into work. Restructuring SHIELD is takes effort but it’s rewarding. A proper chef for cafeteria, reallocating the budget for the officers’ hall to recreation for everyone, developing a daycare center for when the Helicarrier’s docked and of course, a suggestion box. Those are just a few of the first changes he makes upon assuming command. He’s pleased to note the rise in morale and carefully considers the suggestions received.

He loves visiting R&D when he can, lending ideas and expertise to their current work. There are some brilliant minds there, and from time to time he leaves them with the specs for new weapons and tech he doesn’t have time to develop himself. Of course, he has his own labs and projects he controls, dangerous ideas, controversial inventions, and inventions related to his Iron Man suits. Destructive projects to take out cities and countries, doomsday measures, and nuclear weapons. Projects to improve and develop the world, solve issues of hunger and turn fallow land fertile. Projects that seemed innocuous, but in the wrong hands could be modified and weaponized.

He tries to go along with missions that are field testing new equipment and is glad he does, not just because it gets him out of the office. There’s been an increase in terrorist activity, groups having become unexpectedly well-outfitted to fight back. SHIELD needs to find out who’s playing sugar daddy and why.

There’s a lot to learn and even more to do. Secretly, he’s grateful when things run him down faster. Exhausted sleeps seem to contain a lower percentage of dreams and nightmares. He theorizes that when it’s busy repairing his brain and body to peak health, Extremis disrupts the dream process. He doesn’t try to test the thought. He gets enough injuries just doing his job.

\--

There's code behind his eyes and that's not new but this is foreign code. Invasive, sweeping through what makes him him and he's paralyzed. Assimilated, duplicated, replicated. He's fractionally aware he's screaming as his body breaks down to base codes that are fit together wrong. He's being rewritten and it's the end of Tony Stark, Iron Man, Director of SHIELD. In his last semi-conscious flare of awareness he thinks it's 50-50 that he'll see Steve where he's headed and he’s at peace with that because it’s better than the current odds.

He comes to in a hospital that's too cold to be hell and too austere to be heaven. He's told about how Ultron infected him through his armor, how he became a she resembling Janet van Dyne (and he knows already it's going to be a joke he'll never live down). How Hank Pym saved the day with a Commodore 64. As they talk, Extremis feeds him a visual play-by-play of their story. Seeing himself as Ultron-Jan is peculiar. _Was that really me?_ He thinks and the video automatically rewinds to show him what his transformation had looked like from the outside. He could’ve done without remembering that. They say he’s lucky, and he knows he is, but he doesn’t fully feel like it. That might be the headache of getting updated on all the other happenings in the world while he was out (dead? Reborn? Science was getting as flaky with life as magic).

On the plus side, the Avengers team had gone through what was probably a good bonding experience. He would have preferred to be a part of it without being Ultronified though. First the fatally infectious bio disease on the Helicarrier, then Ultron’s virus code. That was the second time he’d been infected and rewritten in too short a time. He was getting sick of it. Some improvements to the antivirus systems maybe? One more thing to add to the to-do list.

Maybe he’d give the task to Maya Hansen once she was found. She’d love the project, anything to work more on Extremis. The world wasn’t ready for it yet, but it really was beautiful, a thing of the future being held back by the present. Maya had disappeared after the bio disease seemed to have come from a mutated Extremis-like strain. Tony was fairly certain she hadn’t had anything to do with the mutation though, after all, she’d been living mostly under his supervision. While her ethics could be flawed, she’d never truly wanted to create harm, just improve the world. Knowing her as a peer and colleague, he was certain he’d find her again while following up the bio disease case. The question was only whether she’d be trying to stop the misuse of her invention or fixing it. 

\--

“–and that’s why I’d be honoured if you’d let me take up the shield.” The agent completes his speech and looks hopefully at the Director of SHIELD.

“Did you see the announcement I made earlier this week?” Tony asks politely, rather than just laughing the agent out of his office. He wonders how an intelligence organization can have so many idiots.

“Yes but I thought that–”

“Then you know my stance on the topic. I’m sorry Cartwell. Dismissed.”

“Yes sir.” The agent leaves unhappily. Tony pinches the bridge of his nose and sets the man under basic monitoring, just in case, before calling his secretary.

“Mrs. Rennie, could you screen my appointments more thoroughly? Thanks.” If he had to sit across from one more person telling him why they’d be a great Captain America. One more person who wasn’t taking his very clear, very public announcement that the shield was retired seriously, he was going to hit them. Captain America was synonymous with Steve Rogers and that was the way things were going to stay. The legacy had started with him and would end with him.

“Of course Mr. Stark,” she replies, then adds apologetically. “There’s just one more person here to see you.”

“Can it wait?”

“Well…”

“Send him in,” Tony sighs.

“Sorry for the inconvenience Mr. Stark, but you’re a hard man to see,” the new arrival apologizes as the doors close behind him. “I’m Maurice Greenley, attorney-at-law. Steve Rogers came to see me by recommendation of Matt Murdock and entrusted me with a heavy burden, one I’m afraid I’ll unload on you today.”

The lawyer`s arrival is a surprise, though in retrospect, it shouldn`t be. The man is polite and efficient with an air of reliability. Tony can see why Steve chose him. Fifteen minutes later, the lawyer leaves behind a letter, a small box and a blank-faced Tony Stark.

He’d thought it might be a trick, but the writing is Steve’s, and as promised, the letter contains knowledge only they shared. He tells Anne that he’s only taking emergency calls until further notice and retreats to his inner office. There, he reads the letter for the second time, slower, and holds it carefully away when he feels tears forming. He rereads the letter until he can’t see before setting it carefully down to cry. He can’t bring himself to open the box. That would be for another day.

\--

Of course Steve would’ve wanted the dream to live on. In a self-flagellating journey after a sleepless night, he revisits the ruined wreck of the Avengers Mansion, home to so many memories. Stepping inside, the sounds of the cars and life outside fade quiet. Not for the first time, since his world ended and began, he’s reminded that silence can be deafeningly loud.

Here was the place where he’d welcomed Steve to his first new home in the 21st century and Steve had smiled, polite and uncertain, and thanked him. There was the spot where the couch had been, where they’d curled next to each other, watching movies but really watching each other. And out in the garden, more weed now than anything, was where they’d shared their first kiss. The memorial statues hadn’t had any reason to exist back then.

An old Avengers team photo hangs crooked on the wall, one of the earliest, and he does his best not to look at it. He doesn’t want to register the crack in the glass which separates Iron Man and Captain America. It had only been a hairline fracture when he’d arrived here last time, to wait for Steve, to try to talk things out.

He can’t escape the reminders though. He flinches spotting the broken table in the dining room. That was where Steve had made love to him, years ago, laughing quietly with bright eyes that if Tony didn’t keep it down, they’d get caught. Tony, eons younger than he felt now, hadn’t cared, had hammed it up, moaning louder until Steve muffled him with smiling kisses. It was also where they’d tried to broker peace during the war. Symbolically, it was a fitting reflection of the two of them. Sturdy and strong and now splintered beyond repair.

He’d thought he’d do it quick, like ripping off a bandage. Just, go to Steve’s room and look quickly around to see if there was anything to keep, leave. He can’t do it though, now that he’s here; he’s too much of a coward. Finding his old lab, he sighs. Even stripped bare he knows where things used to be, having spent many more hours here than anywhere else, including his bedroom. He realizes belatedly that it wasn’t much better of a choice given how much time Steve had spent down there with him, and god – it was in this lab when he’d first realized it – that he’d known he loved Steve Rogers.

It’d been the morning after one of his countless benders.

He’d been driving himself through his exhaustion because he’d been certain (as he always was at that point) that he’d solve whatever issue was at hand shortly. That the answer was coming and he’d hit himself for not seeing it earlier. Sleep could wait; he was just going to be up a little bit longer. Steve had already checked in on him a few times, gently, then more and more firmly suggesting he should get some rest. So he hadn’t exactly been surprised when Steve had stalked in purposefully and told him.

“You’re coming to bed now.”

Tony wasn’t new to dating, had known they were perhaps just past butterfly novelty and onto the easy comfort part of the rhythm. Where you could inhabit the other’s space and it wasn’t an uncertain invasion. It was also the stage which usually involved modification, attempted or successful, of appearance or behaviour. He might be rich, brilliant, handsome, but he had flaws. He was aware of the laundry list that could be applied to him, and it was part and parcel with having a significant other to have to try to shorten it. Most of his past partners who’d seen him working in this state had tried to get him to stop. They’d demand his attention, seduce or wear him down until he did what they wanted. It was for his own good, they’d say.

That, he was used to. Steve copying and saving his currently open project files to a tablet, less so. Confused, he’d asked him what he was doing.

“What’s it look like, genius? I just want you in bed with me. You don’t need to stop working.” Steve had said, raising a brow at him before turning his attention back to the screen like he hadn’t said something remarkable.

While Tony was processing, Steve had picked him up with caveman presumptuousness and carried him to bed. The pillows on his side of the bed had been propped up in advance and Steve had set him down and fussed with them until he was comfortable. Then, he’d handed Tony the tablet with a kiss and curled up with a yawn, burying his face in Tony’s side after murmuring goodnight.

Tony’d held onto the tablet like he wasn’t sure what it was doing in his hands and stared at Steve like a puzzle he’d yet to solve. Absently flicking through what he’d started in the lab, the manic attention that had kept him working waned. He hadn’t been able to name the feeling that had blossomed in his chest as he’d lain back against the pillows to fall asleep, or even when he’d woken, refreshed and tangled around Steve who’d been awake and watching him fondly.

No, he’d been going over the solution he’d finally found for the problem that had been keeping him up and a breath later, he’d just known. _Oh_ , he’d thought to himself, _that explained it_. Smiling to himself, he started spinning himself around in his workshop chair like a loon, and that was how Steve had found him. His love had laughed at him and made a comment about guessing that he’d made a breakthrough. He’d nodded and let Steve think it was just the joy of scientific progress, keeping his discovery to himself like a secret treasure.

It had been one of the happiest moments of his life. Nearly all his best memories had to do with Steve. His smile turns melancholy. He’d spent enough time reminiscing. Trailing up the stairs to Steve’s room, he unlocks it via Extremis and takes a breath before opening the door.

There are drapes over most of the big furniture items in the room, something Jarvis must have done as he’d closed up the place. They make him think of shrouds, like the room is filled with misshapen corpses, and he hates it. He yanks one off. An armchair. The next, a lamp. A dresser. Empty when he checks it, but full of memories. A chair. Bought for sturdiness because they’d broken the last one while making up from a meaningless spat. The desk they’d moved over to, laughing breathlessly as they’d picked each other off the ground. There’s history to every piece he uncovers.

The mirror is new though. At least, he doesn’t remember it. It was probably one of those things Steve liked – _used to like_ – hauling back from flea markets, taken by artistic whimsy. Inspiration, as he’d called it. It had been one of his guilty pleasures. Tony had always laughed at the puppy dog face Steve pulled whenever he’d made a new purchase and made space for it, waving off his boyfriend’s concerns about money spent frivolously and inconvenience.

The desk was one of those things, the first actually. They’d been wandering through an antique furniture stall when Steve had found the desk, running his hands over the smooth wood and fine detailing lovingly. Once Tony had noticed Steve’s repeated covetous glances back as they’d moved on, he’d asked Steve if he wanted it. Rather than answering him directly, Steve had said with a hint of resignation in his voice, that he had a desk already. Tony had rolled his eyes and headed back to the stall, Steve protesting at his heels, but so pleased with the purchase he’d carried his old desk out of his room a day before the new one was set to arrive.

Sitting down before it, he feels where the varnish has begun to wear on the surface before sliding opening the drawers. It’s just meant to be a cursory check. The stationary isn’t a surprise, but his heart pangs with nostalgia finding the small toolkit in the bottom drawer. He used to work on things so often in here that it had been easier just to keep some stuff on hand. While he’d always tucked it by the bed, Steve had always moved it back here after the first time they’d accidentally grabbed the wrong lube. He closes the drawer and moves on to the others.

In the center one he finds a sketchbook and opens it randomly to a sketch of the skyline. Another page has a rendering of the Avengers in full gear. He finds portraits of various members of the team, including himself through the pages. There’s one of him sleeping, arc reactor glowing softly and he moves over to sit on the bed and see the art in the gentle afternoon light. It’s beautiful, and as he skims the book, he finds himself in fragments across the pages, a pair of mischievous eyes, a goatee, a silhouette, a hand.

Melancholy, he sets the book on the bedside table before curling on the bed. Self-indulgently, he buries his head in one of the pillows and breathes deeply, hoping to catch even the ghost of Steve’s scent. The slightly dusty covers make him sneeze and he laughs and hates how hollow it sounds in the empty space. Abruptly, he feels the telltale prickle of tears threatening and settles on his back and closes his eyes trying to hold them back. Even atop the covers, the bed is comfortable and Tony is so, so tired.

\--

It’s quiet. There’s an anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories that’s so sound absorbent that people can’t stand to be in there for long. In the absence of sound, their ears adapt and eventually, they can’t stand to hear their heart, beating; their organs, squelching, _functioning_ to keep them alive. This place isn’t like that, it’s not that dead silence, but he thinks if he strains, he might be able to hear his body keeping rhythm.

He’s on a rock that floats in inky vastness. It’s one in a series of haphazard footholds winding out into the distance. When he looks past what’s directly before him, he sees what looks like tiny, winking stars. _Something’s out there_ , he thinks, _I need to know what_.

The journey looks arduously long and dangerous. His rock, he knows, is safe. There’s no guarantee whether the others are as well. Glancing down, all he sees is more empty space, bottomless and dark. He can’t stay here forever though, and there’s something about those stars that call to him. He crouches down, extends his leg to test the next rock forward, using his foot to push at it. It holds still. He straightens and breathes and takes the step. Safe. He tests the next rock like a caveman again. Also safe. Step. Check. Safe, safe, safe.

He doesn’t look back.

The rocks become farther apart as his comfort grows and eventually he has to jump, then leap between them. He catches himself as the trail peters out. He’s perplexed. Where is the next step? _Oh._ The next rock is chest height. Seeing no way around it, he sets his hands on it and pushes himself up. There’s a moment where his body’s suspended on his arms, legs kicking at nothing and he fears he’ll slip off his target and into space before he gets a knee up. Clambering onto it awkwardly, he feels ridiculous; like a child trying to haul himself up on stage from audience ground level. He takes a break, breathing slowly, sitting on the rock and reassuring himself of its solidness. Recovering, he looks out again and understands that the trail’s trajectory has changed from horizontal-forward to up-and-forward.

The stars still look far, but brighter now. He gets back to climbing, thankful that this time the rocks are closer and closer the higher he goes, more and more like staircase. In a shorter time than he suspected the journey would take, but long enough that he knows he’s travelled a while, he reaches the last stage.

There _are_ stars here but _his_ stars aren’t stars at all. He can see that now, a concert hall away from the first few. His stars are a collection of polished gems and glinting mirrors; strewn across the expanse of the sky as if by the hand of some benevolent god. The rock path splinters into gapped trails that occasionally cross one another, but for the most part have single destinations. Each to a mirror. No mirror the same.

He wavers in place, uncertain how to proceed. Having a wealth of choice means having to make a choice, and choices are hard. He surveys the paths like a multiple choice question he doesn’t know the answer to. What was it they’d said in university? When in doubt, pick C? But there is no C option here, so he takes what appears to be the most well connected path and hopes. What he’s hoping for, he doesn’t know, but with every step he has the sense that there’s something important about this unassuming place. Something he needs to find.

The first mirror is only a few rocks out of his way. He boards the rock it sits on and walks around, studying it from all angles. It looks rather common, short and smallish with a cheap oak frame, but there must be something special about it for it to be out here amongst the stars and gems. Kneeling down, he peers at the reflective surface. Ordinary. How disappointing.

The surface ripples. At first so faintly he thinks his eyes are playing tricks on him, but as the ripping grows more violent, it cannot be denied. He freezes stock-still when mirror settles and an image forms.

It’s Steve. In bed. Cuddling someone. His heart stutters. Then the someone shifts and he realizes two things at once. The image isn’t just a stillframe, and the someone is him. Steve’s arms are wrapped around image-him and Tony remembers what that felt like. He wishes he knew what it was Steve was murmuring into image-Tony’s hair, lips curved up at the edges. He watches Steve laugh as image-Tony scowls and swats at him. There’s something different about Steve though. Narrowing his eyes, Tony picks it out quickly as it’s quite literally staring him in the face. Image-Steve has a cleft chin. Image-Tony’s face is squarer than his. He frowns and studies the pair a little more. They look young and it shows their eyes, like they’ve never faced horror. He’s abruptly jealous and protective. They kiss tenderly. Uncomfortable, he turns away.

The itch that he has to find something remains. He follows the rock path to next mirror, a dark, twisted thing that gives him a bad feeling. He hurries away from it and the next one, a dull thing that he can’t bring himself to care about. It’s not so much that he chooses to stop at the one after that, but is forced to. It’s large, almost fully occupying the rock on his path to the others. Ornate where the first was plain, the word that comes to mind is _ostentatious_. Given its enormous size and placement, the second is _pompous_.

The surface turns golden when he stands before it, as if it acknowledges his presence, but doesn’t change again until he’s about to move on. The gold recedes, steady and smooth, like a stage curtain being drawn up at the start of a performance. He sees red armored boots walking ceremoniously up a plush, crimson carpet of what looks to be a sumptuous hall. The person kneels laboriously and of course it’s Steve. Medieval knight Steve. He has his serious face on, but his blue blue eyes are smiling as he kisses the bejewelled hand extended to him. Tony doesn’t wonder have to wonder whose hand it is for long as the curtain makes its final reveal. A crowned version of himself watching the knight with something akin to awe.

Knight Steve lips move a fraction and he sees the crowned Tony jolt and look up. King? Prince? Royal him’s lips move in a way that suggests he’s declaring something to an audience, pausing at times as if to wait out some response. Knight Steve begins to rise and the image shimmers and clears again to beautifully crafted doors closing behind the pair. The moment they’re shut, his mirror self says something that looks like _I missed you_ before subjecting Steve to a crushing hug. When the two finally draw apart, Knight Steve runs a critical eye over Royal Tony and whatever comment he makes causes Royal Tony to look indignant. Steve’s gauntleted hand cups the Royal’s chin gently and Tony thinks Steve says _I missed you too_ before kissing Royal Tony sweetly. 

His own heart pangs. Tony takes that as his cue to get moving again.

Winding his way across the rocks, he sees a number of interesting mirrors, but doesn’t stop by any of them long enough for them to animate. He’s restless, the need to _find_ making him irritable. Where is it? Where is – _that one_. He doesn’t know how he knows, but there’s something about it that calls to him.

The mirror pushes out of a slate slab like a living thing, dark roots twisting up and around each other to cradle an array of beautiful gems. As he approaches, the hues of the frame seem to separate, shifting and changing. Dark blue, purple, green; cool colours, like when light shines over oil on water. The iridescent spiral flays out to support a stately oval mirror and lovingly encircle it and its companions. Delicate offshoots spider out, like the tree-like base is alive, but the abandoned cobwebs atop belie that impression.

Tony wonders what version of himself and Steve this mirror will show as he boards the rock to stand before it. If the frames are hints to what’s within, then perhaps in this one they’re magical forest creatures, like fairies or elves. Given the mirror’s colouring and their surroundings, he has the irrational thought _space forest fairies_. The left mirror glints like it’s shaking its head. He catches another movement in right side mirror that makes him think of Pepper’s huffy sigh when he used to ask her to show out his latest one night stand. His mouth twists, so he was even disappointing to inanimate objects now.

Looking into the main mirror, he doesn’t see himself, the reflective surface clouded pastel shades. They fade softly into a portrait of Captain America. Steve stares out into the distance with vacant eyes and a posed smile. It feels like a memorial photo. 

Tony hates it immediately, but can’t look away. Something about it tickles the back of his mind. Why doesn’t this Steve move?

Cataloguing what’s visible of Steve’s features and the costume, it clicks. This is _his_ Steve. The image stays still and lifeless and he watches it blankly, thoughts swirling. It doesn’t move because Steve is dead. There’s no other Tony in this mirror because it’s his world’s mirror and he’s outside of it. 

He wants to run away from it. This is not preferable to seeing other versions of himself happy, but he finds himself sitting down instead, as if to wait.

His mind wanders afar, dipping into memories and wishes. He breathes the timeless hush of space. It’s so peaceful. He could sit here forever. Grow roots and sink into the rock. Become a part of it like the mirror. It would be so easy. So very–

A cloud appears in a side mirror. He blinks. Another one at the other side, this one coloured. He watches intently as more clouds puff into existence and when the reflective surfaces seem full, the clouds begin wafting across the center oval, slowly obscuring Steve. Curious, he shifts closer, cautiously touching a curved branch of the frame.

As if that was some sort of sign, the clouds vanish and –

Captain America whips around like he’s heard a sound behind him, poised to throw his shield. His eyes are sharp, dangerous, mission-mode. Tony jerks, hands going up, mouth opening to shout “It’s me!” on automatic even as his voice dies on the words. He shouldn’t be scared, it’s just a mirror thing, it can’t hurt him, can’t hear him, can’t see him, if the other mirrors were anything to go by. Hell, even if Steve _did_ see him, given the way things ended, Steve really should throw the shield at him. He stares at the moving image and sees the eyes behind the cowl widen, and a millisecond from being thrown, gloved fingers tighten their grip on the shield. Tony’s heart speeds up. _Could_ this Steve see him? Is this a two-way mirror? They take each other in for a moment and he feels like it must be true, as impossible as it seemed. Steve takes a step forward and the hand not holding the shield reaches out for Tony’s like a reflex, lips forming a silent, disbelieving question.

_Tony?_

\--

He gasps awake to cream sheets and the faint smell of dust. A dream. Of course it was a dream. Behind his eyes he can still see him though. He breathes out then inhales slowly, calming himself down.

Just his subconscious taking his tired thoughts and wrapping them around reality. Extremis may have made his brain more like a computer, but the human basis was still alive and in control. He wanted Steve to still be alive, and there in the dream, Steve was. He missed them being content together and so he’d seen it. The whole royalty and knight thing was also a no-brainer. The mirrors…His gaze lands on the antique he’d uncovered. Mystery solved.

Still, though vaguely disturbing, it was an interesting dream and he’d have liked to have seen where the story went, if there was a story. Sighing, he levers himself off the bed. There’s always more to do these days and he’s already spent too long here. He has to admit that he feels more rested after that little nap than he has in months, though it’s made him late for a meeting. Maria’s messages have been getting increasingly pissed off, asking for his whereabouts. He’ll just have to finish going through Steve’s room later.

Taking the sketchbook with him as he makes his way out of the room, he lingers over the mirror one more time. The one in his dream had shared so many of the real thing’s details. Actually, it was quite impressive given that he hadn’t really looked at the thing closely earlier. The real and the dream mirror weren’t identical, but the differences were small. Less jewels in the real thing, a less fanciful looking base and sturdier frame. _The human brain really is amazing_ , he thinks, hurrying off to meet the car he was already driving closer with Extremis.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve’s past the point of thinking he’s having an extended flashback on the way to afterlife. He thinks that maybe he’s already in hell, but some memories are downright pleasant and frankly, it doesn’t seem hot enough. Anyways, as far as he understood things, while the devil might try mess things up on Earth, he was pretty straightforward and categorical in his own domain. Steve would’ve been told his wrongs and been assigned to whichever number circle of the hell he’d been judged as belonging to. So he’s probably not in hell and if this is heaven, it sure it is a letdown. Where he is and how he got here are definite mysteries. 

There are sporadic interruptions in the trip down memory lane. At first they were small, inexplicable flashes of jewel tones in the corner of his eye. Then the flashes grew longer until suddenly he found himself in a red glass room, pristine and quiet. Lovely, but somehow he had the sense that it was lonely. He had a few moments to look around before he was unceremoniously thrust back into his memories. 

It happens again when he’s mid-battle, the glass room whirling with clouds this time. He registers a presence behind him and only just sees hands in the air in time to pull his throw.

“It’s me!” He thinks he hears an all-too familiar voice say. It sounded so faint even his serum-enhanced hearing has difficulty picking it up. His hunch is confirmed as the clouds dissipate.

“Tony?” he asks in disbelief, reaching out on instinct. Tony is gone in a blink and he’s alone again. He doesn’t know what to think, it had happened so fast. The room offers no explanation, multi-faceted walls impassive. He casts his shield around to see if the glass will shatter but it seems the walls repel it.

\--Tony--

He can’t get the dream or the mirror out of his head. Extremis makes it impossible to forget things, as much as he’d like to sometimes. The image of Steve reaching out for him seems seared on his retinas like a burned-in LCD display. 

Finishing up as best as he can for the day on the endless job that being Director of SHIELD is, he swings by the mansion for the second time in a week, heading straight for Steve’s room. He thinks about sleeping there again but he’d prefer to be surrounded by his own things and have an array of suits at his disposal when he woke at whatever disorienting hour the emergency alert was going to sound. It was bound to happen. He’d been on 17 missions with SHIELD alone over the past month.

After a moment’s thought, he decides to take the mirror home. It’s too awkward for him to move alone and too big to fit in the car he’s driving today, so he throws together the lightweight armor suit he has at hand, and uses it to carefully pick up and fly the mirror home while he drives the car. If that was abusing his ‘super’ powers, well, he’s not sorry. Especially when he sees it waiting patiently in his room as he crawls under his own sheets after a quick, but blessedly hot shower. Tomorrow, barring another apocalypse, he’ll see if there’s a better place for it and maybe regret his impromptu decision to haul it home. Tomorrow…

\--

He’s faster over the rocks this time, more confident in their steadiness. He ascends the stairs like pilgrim and reaching the star-jewel border, breathes in the quiet before winding his way through. If nothing’s changed, he has an idea of where to go and he finds the slate rock with the mirror with little trouble.

He’s disappointed at once. Steve’s not waiting for him there. He’s only aware that he’d been expecting to pick up where he’d left off when he’d woken last because it wasn’t happening. He chides himself for thinking anything could be so easy. Eventually, the reflective surface ripples into Steve’s portrait.

At first he considers trying out other mirrors and coming back later, but the fear that he’ll miss Steve’s appearance keeps him rooted. Resigning himself to a wait, he busies himself by imagining various versions of their reunion. He wishes he had a computer to run his simulations and calculate probabilities.

Frowning, he notices there’s no low hum of background activity in his brain. Usually this would cause him some panic, worrying over what could be malfunctioning, but he’s oddly at peace with it. If anything, it sets his mind at ease to have another reason for why the place seems so quiet.

Finally the surface trembles, distorting the portrait, and Captain America bursts to life behind the glass. He glances around himself with apparent confusion before turning his laser focus on Tony.

“Steve?” Tony hears himself ask. His voice sounds oddly rough to his ears. “Steve, is that really you?”

The man his head shakes from side to side and Tony’s heart skips a beat, disappointment catching hold. Then a gloved hand is raised, palm forward. _Wait_. The Captain looks around cautiously once more then takes off his cowl.

“Steve,” Tony whispers, hardly believing it. It _is_ Steve. He doesn’t need to ask the question anymore, knows who he’s looking at as sure as anything. Still, when the man gestures for Tony to repeat himself, he asks again anyways. “Is it really you Steve?”

 _Yes_. He sees Steve say and lets out the breath he didn’t know he was still holding. _Tony?_

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me.”

They stare at each other. Tony in wonder at the familiarity of Steve’s features, searching for what next to say. Whatever he thought he’d have to say, whatever careful, apologetic phrases he’d tried crafting during his wait, they’d all fled in the face of the real situation.

“I thought you were dead,” he blurts.

Steve’s lips move, some kind of reassurance. Catching Tony’s expression, he says something else, miming as he does. _Can you hear me?_

“No,” Tony replies, copying the dual communication style. “You?”

 _A little._ Steve motions.

“Is it better if I shout?!” Tony tries, wincing a little as his voice disturbs the peace. It feels foolish, and seeing Steve suppress a wince, he thinks it must’ve looked it too. Thankfully he won’t have to do it again because Steve shakes his head no. They rack their brains silently before looking up in tandem and shrugging

In that one instant, it feels like _before_ ; then their smiles break like waves against rocks. Recent history divides them more than the looking glass. Tony needs to say something but he doesn’t know where to begin. There are so many things that need to be voiced.

 _Where are you?_ Steve motions, and the opportunity passes.

_I don’t know. You?_

_I don’t know._ Steve hesitates before continuing to motion, exaggeratedly enunciating words Tony can’t hear. _Before here, I was fighting. World War II._

Tony frowns. Had he made a mistake? Maybe it wasn’t his Steve? But the man knew him. Unless he thought he was his father? Cautiously he asks. _But. Avengers?_

Steve catches on and waves his hands. _I know. World War II. I’m…_ He thinks, lips pressing together, then looks at Tony before miming ‘WWII”. He fakes throwing his shield and punching someone to his left, then backs up while indicating _now_ to Tony before repeating the fight sequence. He waits expectantly for Tony to piece it together.

Steve is… reliving his own history? Tony is properly horrified though a small, awful part of him is thankful that Steve isn’t reliving their Civil War. He’s ashamed by the thought, as honest as it is, and is lost as to what to say to convey his empathy.

“What can I do?” he asks helplessly.

Steve shrugs. He points to Tony, the ground then raises his hands in question. While Tony understands the question, he doesn’t feel his miming skills are quite on par with Steve’s. Thankfully, his answer is less complicated. He just has to convey to Steve that he doesn’t know, and that it looks like he’s in space. Okay, space is a little harder to explain, but he’s a genius and pointing to the sky and making blinky signs with his hands for stars maybe gets the idea across. Maybe. Steve seems to get it and adds another question, how did Tony get there? It’s a great question, but he doesn’t know the answer any more than Steve does when he asks it back.

He’s about ready to break the new silence when he hears something. Faint, but growing louder. Confused, he looks around, asks. “Can you hear that?”

\--

His alarm clock shrieks in his ear just slightly off rhythm to the sound of an incoming phone call from the Secretary of Defense. He shouldn’t put this call off to voicemail to sleep more, no matter how fascinating a dream he’d been having. Anyways, there’s no guarantee it’d continue on. He sighs and checks that his voice sounds awake enough before picking up. 

“We found her. Maya Hansen.” Jack Kooning’s tone of voice has Tony feeling apprehensive. “I’m sorry, but she’s dead.”

He hadn’t been expecting that. “I see.”

“My people are on scene now. I’ll get the file over to you later this morning.”

“Thank-you.”

He shuts his eyes tightly. He should have looked for her harder, sooner. Another preventable death on his hands. He allots himself a single minute to grieve and feel then squares his jaw and gets up. It’s time to work.

He falls asleep two days later. Even Extremis can keep him going only so long. 

\--Tem--

“Are these the figures on the last batch?” Maya Hansen takes the report like it’s her due. “My, they’re incredible.”

He tips his head in acknowledgement. “The things that can be done with the simulation software we have now are quite advanced.”

“I’d love to get a look at it someday,” she hints.

“Perhaps. The inventors are quite protective of it though,” he lies smoothly. She doesn’t need to know the results are from actual human trials. Her past association with Tony Stark suggests she might not positively receive that information “You have good news on the dispersal method I hope? I’m missing lunch with an important man.”

“Almost, I think I found a way to make it aerial,” Maya Hansen smiles, alight with scientific progress.

Excellent news indeed. An efficient way to usher humanity into a new world. 

“Tem, I’ve managed to program in a sequence so the virus will automatically deactivate when it encounters non-compatible life. It’ll virtually eliminate the fatality rate. ” She looks at her workbench like a proud mother. “Isn’t it great?”

He stares out the window, schooling his expression. Why hadn’t she’d just done as instructed and finished the dispersal system? The enhancement had been perfect, just as it was. A new age could not commence without loss.

“Tem?”

“It’s just so rare to have my expectations surpassed. Wonderful work, my girl,” he praises, masking his true feelings.

“I just wanted to say thank-you again. This lab, the resources, it’s like a dream.” She smiles at him gratefully. 

“It’s nothing at all. Anything for the betterment of humankind,” he says graciously. It might be the only whole truth he’s told her today.


	5. Chapter 5

Captain America jumps through the window of his office and straightens, an imposing figure despite his ragged condition. His cowl is torn, exposing blond hair, and he bears a smattering of cuts and bruises and dirt. He seems to spot something Tony doesn’t and – 

_Bang!_

Tony hears the gunshot. The Captain’s breath catches and he falters. Tony rushes to his side. 

_Bang!_

Steve collapses. He pulls off his glove and presses hand to chest. It comes away bloody. He looks bewildered at Tony. There are two new holes in the uniform. Tony stares as crimson seeps over the white star. He wonders why he’s not helping; he should be panicking, trying to put pressure on the wounds.

Steve touches a bloody finger to Tony’s chest, voice clear, though shaky with effort. Dying effort. 

“Why did you do this to me?” The light in his eyes is fading.

 _Bang._

Tony opens his mouth to protest. I didn’t do anything, I’m innocent, I’m – _holding a still hot gun_. He drops it, horrified, but it’s too late.

Steve stares at him with empty eyes.

\--

He comes awake with a cry. His office. He’s in his office. Panting, he looks down with a whimper, expecting to see the gun, see Steve. His hands look clean. The whole office does. No weapon or body in sight.

He shudders. Huffs a breath out, then more slowly, in. A nightmare. Just a nightmare. 

It had just felt so real. Tony lets his undersuit flow out of his pores, wrapping himself in the layer a little tightly, like a shock blanket. Maria Hill comes to his door.

“Stark, you alright? I heard a noise,” she barks.

“Nothing to worry about,” he reassures her, adding with a little self-deprecation. “Just startled awake. Had an impromptu nap.”

She jerks a nod and eyes him, unsmiling. “Get some proper rest tonight. The people you’re talking to tomorrow about the Initiative idea will be hard to sell.”

“I know. I’ll try,” he says with a grimace.

“Good.” She gives him an evaluating look before leaving, walking brusquely back to her own office. He can read her judgement. It’s the same as the most of the soldiers on base. They’re Nick Fury’s boys and he doesn’t compare.

Still frazzled by the nightmare, he pulls up the footage of Steve’s murder and makes himself watch it again. He’s seen it so many times, he’d have it memorized even without Extremis, but having it play before his eyes gives him the reassurance he needs that his nightmare wasn’t real. Anyways, theoretically at least he can look for the actual assassin again.

 _See? You didn’t pull the trigger. You weren’t even there_ He tells himself sternly, trying to ignore how his internal voice scoffs and whispers back. _But you could have been. You could have stopped this. You should have been there. He was in your custody, under your protection. You failed him._

He catches the red dot from the sniper on the back of the guard before Steve throws himself forward and takes the bullet himself. The crowd goes turns to chaos, as many people running to help as to flee the scene. Steve jerks twice in rapid succession and then there’s enough of a gap in the crowd to see the emergency personnel turning Steve over and a distraught Agent 13 desperately trying to stem the bloodflow. The clip ends.

He replays it and studies closely, trying to be objective. Frustrated, he still can’t figure it out what’s off about the scene, but something is. He’s sure of it. _I’m missing something._

Resuming the work he’d dozed off upon, Tony lasts half a day more before catching himself yawning mid-task. This time, he goes to collapse in his own bedroom. Though he’s unlikely to actually sleep well, as it seemed he was back to nightmares rather than beautiful space mirrors, at least he would have tried as promised. He couldn’t run on fumes forever. 

In bed, he pulls out Steve’s sketchbook from his side table. He’s been going through it slowly, savouring the images and what they said. He finds an unfinished one of himself lightheartedly pulling a funny face and studies it. Looking at his face in the mirror to compare, he can’t see that person, doesn’t know how to make his face do that anymore. He scrunches up his nose and twists his mouth, trying to re-enact the sketch to no avail. His eyes sparkle in the picture, in the mirror, they resonate guilt. 

\--Steve--

Reliving going down again into the icy ocean, he’d thought he’d known what was coming next, his first day in the modern age. Waking up to a bunch of people in strange costumes and what he’d thought was a robot man was memorable like that. Instead, once the water rushing into the ship knocked him out, he’d awoken in Germany to storm a Hydra base once again. Then France, ushering citizens to safety, something that had happened before the base. 

The memories had been repeating randomly out of order ever since. Everything from his youth to ocean crash appeared to be fair game. Though he can remember his life after then, he doesn’t relive it. He goes from the battlefield to watching his mother pass on. From fighting with Bucky at his side to their first meeting. But the memory he dreads and relives the most is watching Bucky fall.

He knows it’s not his fault. There was nothing he could do, not at the time and not now, but emotions don’t respond to logic. He can never stop feeling the horror and the punch of failure from his past self, certain he’d just witnessed Bucky die, and from his present, passenger self, aware that this was the beginning of the tale of the Winter Soldier. 

The only sort-of blessing is he finds his way to the glass room more and more often. He’s begun to be aware of the pull that signifies he’ll be switching memories. Every so often, he can feel a thread of another path to take and sometimes when he tugs on it, he gets to the room. 

He likes the place. It’s a sanctuary from his past, and if his hunch is right, the key to moving on with his life. Or afterlife to be more precise. He wasn’t holding out much hope that he’d somehow survived all this time. He was an optimist, not an idiot. 

It had been a surprise to see Tony in the space again and their cut-off conversation only brought him more questions. Tony had been so hopeful, like he couldn’t believe Steve was real and Steve understood that because he felt the same. He considered after the first time that maybe he’d imagined seeing him but the second time put an end to that line of thought. There was no way he’d have come up with a situation as frustrating as this one on his own. Also, he wouldn’t have ever pictured Tony looking like he had.

Tony had looked…well, Tony looked good. He nearly always did on the surface, but it was what was below that was more telling. Steve knew how to read the shadows in his eyes and the line of his mouth. They told him Tony was sick at heart. That the weight of the world was heavy on his shoulders and the manic certainty that had possessed him through his support of the SHRA had dissipated. Steve guessed that as usual, Tony was under the delusion that he was responsible for everything, It wasn’t a new MO for him and privately, Steve called it Tony’s Atlas complex. Usually whoever was closest to Tony would help wrestle him back into a healthier mindset. With all that had happened though, the support system had definitely been ruptured. 

Steve worries. He wants to see Tony again. He’d lied to himself at first that he was just missing having company. Then he realizes how pointless it is to lie to himself and admits that what he really wants to do is assuage his worry. No matter how angry he was with the man, he still goddamn _cared _. Even if everything was just random neurons firing and Tony, his fantasy chance to find some resolution.__

__The room is smokey when he slides in, giving his spirits a lift they sorely needed, coming from a memory of a devastated village his team hadn’t gotten to fast enough. Tony’s voice comes through so faint through their connection that Steve can barely breathe if he wants to hear what Tony’s saying. And he does want to hear. The smoke gently clears as he listens._ _

__“I’m sorry,” Tony chokes out wetly, forehead resting on laced hands. It doesn’t sound like the first time he’s said it. “I’m sorry I let you down. I know…I know I didn’t kill you. Not literally. But I might as well have pulled the trigger myself. It feels like I did. It’s just…nothing goes quite how I think it will. The big things, sure. I knew there’d be a war between superheroes. I tried to stop it. I knew I’d recognize what would start it when I saw it. I was _right_ about those things; no matter how much I wanted to be wrong. I swear Steve, I’ve –”_ _

__Steve thinks his heart might break seeing the tear-stained anguish Tony tries to hide from him when he finally looks up. Tony was definitely doing exactly what he’d guessed. Seemed like neither of them had been finding happiness in being right recently._ _

__He reaches out to lay a hand on Tony’s shoulder to comfort him before realizing again that they didn’t have the luxury of touch. Remembering a movie they’d watched together years before – “This part’s classic!” Tony had declared – he holds up his hand instead, palm facing Tony. The genius wipes beneath his eyes, staring at the hand. He blinks once and tips his head before hesitantly mirroring Steve, glancing up to confirm. Steve gives a small nod. From their points of view, it at least looked as if they were touching now. Tony seems enthralled._ _

__“You unbelievable dork,” Tony whispers after long minutes, breaking the spell with wavering lips. His eyes look huge, still welled with tears. “Star Trek? Really?”_ _

__Steve shrugs minutely and gives him a half smile mouthing. _Your fault.__ _

__Tony’s gaze drops back to their hands and Steve realizes his poor word choice a moment later. “I know, it is.”_ _

__“Tony, Tony look at me, not about that,” he starts helplessly, forgetting he can’t be heard. He taps the finger of his outstretched hand midair to get Tony’s attention back and shakes his head before repeating himself, mouthing the words exaggeratedly. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”_ _

__“How do you know that?” Tony challenges. “I –“_ _

__He shakes his head again more furiously and glares. Tony was a goddamned idiot sometimes. “Because I. Know. You.”_ _

__“If I’d been on scene. If I’d just – I should have been there.”_ _

__Tony’s just so _wrong_ it makes him want to _shake_ him. This is what the man’s been beating himself up over? He takes a breath. There’s no sense in getting worked up; it was hard enough communicating as they were. Tony’s words feel like déjà vu and the memory comes to him in a rush._ _

___“Look what they did to him! Decades of this. Torture and brainwashing and missions,” Steve looked helplessly from the file to Tony and adds lowly. “I should have been there. I should have gone back for him.”_ _ _

___“You thought he was dead.”_ _ _

___“Which he very clearly, wasn’t!” Steve ends in a shout before catching himself. He’s not mad at Tony, he’s mad at himself. “Sorry.”_ _ _

___“Look,” Tony pinched his nose. “Did you think you could have saved him at the time without both of you dying?”_ _ _

___“No.”_ _ _

___“Did you believe he was dead?”_ _ _

___“Yes.”_ _ _

___“Last one – did you know what was going to happen?”_ _ _

___“…No.” Steve sighed. “It still feels like it’s my fault. That if I had just – just done something different. Some minor thing. I could have saved him from all of this. I was_ there _for crissakes– “__ _

___“You didn’t know and you couldn’t have known,” Tony cut him off again and looked him in the eye. “If you’re to blame for Bucky, I’m to blame for Stark weapons being sold to terrorists and what they did with them.”_ _ _

___“Tony, that wasn’t your–“ Steve starts, a knee-jerk reaction._ _ _

___“I know. And what happened to Bucky. Isn’t. Yours.”_ _ _

__“Were you, did you just think about Bucky?” Tony asks, eyes wide._ _

__Steve frowns and nods._ _

__“I remember that – I could _see_ that!” he says excitedly. _ _

__Well, that was interesting. Steve points to his ear in question._ _

__“No, no sound. But I remember the gist. Try another?”_ _

__Steve thinks before thinking of Tony at work in his lab while Steve sketched. He flashes thumbs up in question. No dice. Tony thumbs down before motioning ‘again.’ Alright then._ _

__“Molecule Man’s lair?” Tony asks. “Oh, that time when Don and I had to come out.”_ _

__Steve thumbs up and grins a little at the memory of Tony’s sheepish expression as he’d come clean. It had been _adorable_._ _

__“Wow, this is as embarrassing to watch as it was to live,” Tony grimaced. “At least I’m still fit in my old age.”_ _

__Steve rolled his eyes. “You’re not old.”_ _

__“Sure, compared to you,” Tony teases automatically before his gaze drops again. “I feel old though.”_ _

__Steve point back and forth between them. _You and me both.__ _

__“Well, at least we’ve got our memories, don’t we?” Tony says with forced cheer._ _

__Steve wishes there was a way for him to communicate more complex thoughts because he’s had enough of his memories for a long while._ _

__“Right, that was crass. Sorry,” Tony says apologetically, reading Steve’s expression. “I just keep putting my foot in my mouth around you. I’m really glad you can hear me though, is it better this time?”_ _

__Steve hadn’t realized it but Tony’s voice definitely seemed louder to him than it had been before. It was still quiet, but it had grown from a faint tinny to semi-distant background noise in a phone call. He nods while indicating ‘sort-of’._ _

__\--Tony--_ _

__It’s nice that Steve can hear him now, he thinks drowsily. The words they exchanged seem to grow fuzzier, but the emotional rollercoaster memory of guilt-grief-cynicism-surprise-hope remains. Turning his head to the side, he sees his reflection in the mirror. His brain startles back online. That was the _third_ time he’d dreamt of the mirror with its mute Steve. How was he having these dreams? Was he going off his rocker? Normal dreams, normal nightmares, they didn’t follow the sort of progression these had. Then again, it wasn’t as if every time he slept the dream came…_ _

__His eyes narrow. The mirror. He’d had the dream in the mansion, by the mirror, and now, twice more in his room _by the mirror_. Plus, the dreams contained the thing. The probability that that was all a coincidence? Unlikely._ _

__Tony clambers out of bed to examine it. Running his fingers over the beautifully carved wood, he finds nothing strange. What was it about the thing that was so compelling to his subconscious? Could it be enchanted? Nothing about it screamed magic to him. Then again, he wasn’t any expert on that, hence magic-users getting the jump on him more often than he’d like._ _

__If it was magic, what was its purpose? Just because the dreams felt benign, didn’t mean they necessarily were. Still, he had no one to bring this to yet, just a strong hunch._ _

__Falling back to scientific theory, he resolved to test his hypothesis and gather more data. For his next few sleeps at least, particularly the ones by the mirror, he would monitor the room, his vitals, all of it. Overkill or not, being Director of SHIELD had taught him it never hurt to be a little paranoid._ _

__Speaking of which, that nightmare…_ _

__\--Bucky--_ _

__“Sputnik.”_ _

__Bucky feels himself shut down as suddenly as a drape over a birdcage._ _

__It’s World War II and Steve is leading the charge. Steve is slamming his shield into the necks of his opponents._ _

__“It’s okay Bucky, they’re not innocent,” he says soothingly. He grabs a civilian by the neck and proffers the man. “Here.”_ _

__“What the? Cap, what’s?” he says, so confused before tightening his limbs and pulling back his gun._ _

___This isn’t real._ _ _

__He sucks in a breath of laboratory air and opens his eyes to an impressively bearded man and a beautiful blond nurse. She looks familiar, beard man doesn’t._ _

__“Ahh, I didn’t think you’d be so easy,” the man says with a smile. “Another 10ccs please.”_ _

__The nurse slides the needle under his skin, an itch of pain before –_ _

__He stands over the quiet, burning village and it feels like an accomplishment, like victory. A lone survivor thinks he’s stealthy but Bucky knows he’s 40 paces behind him to his right. He waits until it’s 5 paces and the man is leaping before casually shooting his handgun in the man’s direction. He hears wet, choking gasps. A lung probably. He doesn’t bother looking as he moves on. There’s another village after this one that needs to be taken care of and he’s the doctor who’ll fix it all._ _

__This is not him, he thinks. He knows what it is to be broken and emptied and rebuilt. He knows the pain of every memory rushing his mind and clinging to the walls, determined to stay. This is _not him_ and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get free this time, finally. _ _

__He schools his face into the blank mask of the Winter Soldier as he wakes. Says the right things. Having all your memories was good for fooling people sometimes._ _

__“A simple test then, kill the nurse,” the bearded man says._ _

__“What?! No!” she gasps and there’s a flicker behind her eyes that remind him of himself._ _

__The gun is empty. He fires it._ _

__“Not broken yet then I see,” the bearded man shakes his head, unperturbed by the weapon still pointed at his head. “Later, then. Take him away.”_ _

__Electricity shorts his body and brain and limp, he’s dragged through metal corridors. The nurse follows in changed uniform, that of a SHIELD agent now. She cocks her head and murmurs something into her earpiece._ _

__He’s taken down a different hall to a different storage room. It’s woefully familiar. He’s had a lot of time to know the ins and outs of storage rooms. People get bedrooms. He’s a weapon and is stored as such._ _

__She goes down to one knee, lifting his ragdoll chin and he sees that flash again, the undercurrent of intelligence, of resistance. She stalks over to the console on the wall and presses a button._ _

__“They won’t be after us anymore.” He hears her say, voice fainter by the millisecond._ _

__What. The. Hell. Was. She. Thinking._ _

__Wind roars in his ears and his limbs are too heavy to move and he’s falling, falling, falling – this is familiar too – catching glimpses of her shrinking figure standing in the open cargo hold of the plane. Then warm arms, muscled but still too weak to abort the fall only soften it and darkness._ _

__\--Tony--_ _

__Agent 13 was the traitor. Or rather, she’d been brainwashed into being one, just like all the other agents who’d seen Doctor Faustus while he’d masqueraded as a SHIELD psychologist. It had taken him far too long to piece it all together. Agents had lost their lives when their brainwashed fellows had opened the transport ship that had been relocating Crossbones to his girlfriend, Red Skull’s daughter, Sin. SHIELD had been able to determine the common link between the betrayals had been Faustus, but it was Tony’s fault for not checking to see what currently inactive agents had also been to see the shrink._ _

__Then everything had clicked. Sharon Carter, Agent 13 had been to see Faustus. She’d been on scene for Steve’s death. By the time he’d pieced it together to warn his people, Agent 13 had escaped. She had to be apprehended, and soon. Not just because she was a good person and Steve had cared about her, but because she was his newest and best lead for the answers he needed about the circumstances of Steve’s death. Thankfully, Falcon and Black Widow were in pursuit._ _

__“Oof that was a rough landing” Falcon groans._ _

__“Stark. We lost Agent 13, but we got an unexpected package,” Black Widow reports. “The Winter Soldier.”_ _

__Tony’s glad he’s not on video because he mind halts for a moment. _Bucky Barnes_. The man Steve had asked him to save in his letter. It wasn’t Sharon Carter but here was still a chance to do right, to make amends, landing in his lap. _ _

__“Bring him to base.”_ _

__\--Red Skull--_ _

__The fools had lost the Winter Soldier. Red Skull cursed. Broken back into submission, the Winter Soldier would have been uniquely useful: a loyal weapon and a potential durable backup host. Such a shame to lose an item of such potential. Then again, what was a little lost possibility in exchange for escape until his plans were complete?_ _

__Agent 13 was becoming more of a liability than an asset. It was a shame she might still be the key to regaining Steve Roger’s body because it was high time to be rid of her. It was her fault after all that he had to stoop to requesting Doom’s aid again. Furthermore, she was the ultimate reason they’d lost the Winter Soldier. That was twice she’d shown signs of seriously resisting Faustus’ hypnotism. Her little friends had finally clued into her betrayal and had come looking for her; then their silly sentimentality had distracted them from their goal when they’d seen the Soldier thrown from the plane._ _

__That pathetic compassion was why he would win at the end of the day. The brand of supers that lived in the light weren’t ruthless enough to do what had to be done to achieve a goal, worried over the number of bodies left in their wake. He did not concern himself with such petty things. It was the natural order of the world, those who were weak, died, the strong survived, and the superior, ruled._ _


	6. Chapter 6

Has he news for Steve or what! He stumbles in his haste and the coarse rocks scrape his skin and with it, the memory of what he’d wanted to tell Steve about. There’s something different about the journey this time, and he pieces it together in a fraction of a second. His peripherals are clipped, the spectrum of his sight, rearranged. There’s more information, a clearer path to take and he follows the directions without thinking. He touches his face and encounters metal.

His helmet. He tells it to contract and there’s no response. He presses the release and screen windows disappear as the faceplate retracts. He breathes safe, familiar, _quiet_ air for a few moments before replacing the faceplate back down and finishing the proposed course until he’s at the field of gems and stars, then The Mirror.

Steve’s portrait doesn’t appear right away, but he uses the time to take some scans. He notices that though his helmet seems to be functioning, he has no network access. No matter, he’ll just save things to his private server. After, he waits. 

It’s taking an abnormally long time for the portrait to show and he wonders why. Maybe he should take some comparative scans of the other mirrors. He looks out at the myriad of options and wonders where to start. So hard to choose. 

He follows a new path and gazes into a frame made of green stone. Nothing but his own reflection. Giving it a few minutes to react, he peers closer and opens his faceplate to study the stone. It looks like malachite, quite lovely really. The surface shimmers and begins to shift. He sets his faceplate down and – back to his reflection. Strange. He retracts the faceplate and the surface shimmers again until he closes the helmet. Hmm. 

Shrugging, he leaves the faceplate open and watches as a version of Captain America strides into a lab. Tony’s lab, if he’s to judge by the organization. Cap pulls off his gloves and cowl, running a hand through sweat damp hair. Tony notes the ring on the man’s left hand as Steve finger combs the mess into submission using his reflection in a dark screen as a mirror.

“Steve!” A woman calls, sounding pleased. 

“Who said that?” Tony jerks his head, looking around. Nobody there. He frowns. It couldn’t be, could it?

“I’m home,” Steve sing-songs.

He doesn’t think he’s ever heard his Steve sound as playful as that. Tony stares at the mirror. He can _hear_ what’s going on in it.

“Put me down you big oaf!” A peal of laughter chimes out and Tony doesn’t know what’s more shocking. The unexpected audio, or that he’s looking at himself _as a woman_. He’s pretty sure it’s him at least, they share enough facial similarity. Steve swinging him – _her_ –  
around adds another level of surrealism.

“What, no kiss for your long-absent husband?” Steve teases, holding her above him and beaming up at her. 

“What would that teach you about being away for so long then huh, Mr. Rogers-Stark?” she teases back, lips twisting the same way Tony knows his mouth does. She’s definitely a version of him, the arc reactor shines through her shirt from between her breasts. She dips her face closer to Steve’s as if to kiss him, before slipping a finger between their lips. “I shouldn’t be rewarding you for leaving me all lonesome.”

“Aww shucks, when you put it like that I guess I don’t deserve kisses after all Mrs. Stark-Rogers,” Steve says like the old man he is, and sighing melodramatically, begins to set her down.

Tony blinks. They were…married? He squints and sees that she too has a ring, left hand, fourth finger. Oh god, they were married.

“I guess not,” she says sadly before adding like a secret. “Then again, I suppose I could reward my husband for coming home safe…”

“That’d be real swell of y– mmf!” Steve’s act is cut off by what looks to be a very rewarding kiss that quickly turns into enthusiastic making out. 

“I think you should carry me to bed, Mr. Rogers-Stark,” Woman-Tony suggests breathlessly as she comes up for air. “I need to remind you why you should be coming home regularly.”

“I’d like that a lot, Mrs. Stark-Rogers.”

Tony steps back from the malachite mirror. As attractive as he was as a woman, he’d feel like a peeping Tom if he continued to watch. Watching yourself, even an alternate version of yourself, have sex wasn’t the same as watching yourself have sex right? He ponders the morality for a moment before deciding it was better to steer his thoughts elsewhere. 

Right, the audio. There were three variables here: the number of times he’d come to this mirrorscape, this particular mirror, and the helmet. There’s no way to go back in time, so for lack of data, he’d assume frequency was a null factor. Thus, if this mirror was like the others, then the reason he could hear things now was because he had his helmet? And if the helmet worked like a headset to the mirror’s audio jack then – _Steve_. Maybe he could hear him too?

He closes the faceplate, scanning his surroundings once more as he heads back to the slate rock that’s become his home base. It never hurt to gather more intel. Stepping aboard, he stands before the now familiar mirror, tense and hopeful.

Nothing, still. He thinks back to the malachite mirror, maybe _it_ was special? But why would it be? Running through what he did by it, he wants to smack himself in the forehead, but can’t because _his faceplate is still down_. Idiot.

Once it’s up, the mirror clouds almost immediately. He bites back a triumphant cry. Who’d known mirrors could be camera shy? The clouds part to display Steve, the one who moved, not the portrait. The Captain looks at him curiously.

“Hey Steve!” he grins, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little. “Working a theory here. Could you talk? Aloud, I mean. Wherever it is you are.”

 _Hey Tony. Okay?_ Steve’s mouth continues moving but Tony can’t follow his lips anymore. No sound still. Flare of hope extinguished, he waves at Steve to stop and shakes his head sadly.

“I thought I might be able to hear you,” he says, gesturing to his helmet. Guess they were back to the usual mixed communication format.

Steve shrugs.

“I wonder why I could hear you, us, in the other mirror then,” he muses.

 _What?_ Steve looks confused.

“Yeah. Can’t you see some behind me?”

Steve cups his ear and motions upwards with his free hand. Tony repeats himself. Steve shakes his head and raises his hands and makes the ‘I don’t know’ face before explaining through more charades that Tony’s voice is hard to hear today. 

“Huh,” Tony files the incongruence away. A disappointment for them both. But they were smart, they could make it work.

“Mirrors,” he enunciates and uses the palm of his hand to pretend to check his goatee. He uses the distance between his hands after to conveying the approximate size.

Steve nods his understanding.

“It’s uhh, your mirror?”

Steve looks confused, then draws an oval, _mirror_ , indicates the upper curve and starts to spell out his name.

Ahh. Tony shakes his head no. He thinks about how to convey ‘Avengers Mansion’ and ‘your room’ without failing completely and blanks. He waves dismissively. “Nevermind. Not important. What do you see?”

 _A room. You._ Steve moves his hands to make clouds shapes, then wafts them away. He puts his hand at his forehead like he’s looking for something, then points at Tony.

“Got it,” he thumbs up. 

_Good. You see many mirrors?_ Steve draws multiple ovals beside each other.

“Sort of,” Tony wobbles his hand and motions that his view has them scattered about. Returning to the main point, he begins to charade ‘today I heard speaking from another mirror” but partway through he notices the strange look on Steve’s face. “What?”

Steve starts to laugh and gets ‘thinking about before’ across through aborted gestures.

One of the side mirrors shimmers like a waterfall and oh! How did he forget that last time, he’d been able to see some of Steve’s memories? The effect fades as the scene sets. 

_A common room in Avengers Mansion. Tony, Jan and Hank are on one couch, while Hawkeye, Thor and the camera, no, Steve, sit on another. Looking at the grouping of supers in the room, he realizes he knows this scene, just from a different point of view._

_“Why are we playing Grandpa games again?” Hawkeye complained._

_“Because we have to respect the wants and wishes of our elders,” Tony whispered conspiratorially to the archer before looking at the camera – _Steve_ – with a guileless smile. _

_“I have super-hearing you know,” Steve was rolling his eyes, Tony didn’t need to see it because he could hear it in his voice._

_“What’s the purpose of playing this game?” Hank asked absently, shuffling a stack of papers before Jan tapped his wrist lightly murmuring at him to put them down._

_“For one thing, team bonding. Second, we’ve had to pull a lot of surprise attacks recently. I’d like us to be better prepared to communicate without having to speak,” Steve explained, and cutting at glance at Tony, added purposefully. “And not all of us can read and write in the dark, mid-mission.”_

_“Parlour games such as this one are traditional entertainment at feasts!” Thor boomed happily from where he sat on the couch, mug of who-knew-what in hand. “Let us begin so that I may soon claim victory against our opposition!”_

_“Alright, Tony, you’re up first,” Jan prodded him._

_“Fine, fine,” Tony heaved himself up with a sigh. “But seriously, how d’you expect me to win against Thor? If this were high school, he’d be like, the jock who also aces drama.”_

_“You’re a genius, you’ll figure it out,” Steve smiled encouragingly._

_“Cheering on the competition Cap? Really?” Hawkeye rolled his eyes. “You guys make me sick.”_

_“Just being a good sport,” Steve said serenely, but purposefully leaned over Hawkeye to grab Tony’s tie and pull him in for a kiss. “Good luck Tony.”_

_“Ugh, gross! Get off me!” Hawkeye pushed at them ineffectually._

_Steve released Tony back to his team and grinned at Hawkeye. “Still think I’m a grandpa?”_

_Hawkeye sputtered. “How do people still think you’re some paragon of virtue?”_

_Janet laughed and clapped her hands. “Alright! Thor, Tony, you’ve drawn your lots. 3, 2, 1, let’s play!”_

__

“I could hear that,” Tony says with wide eyes, almost forgetting to mime due to his growing excitement. “I could hear that!”

_You saw?_

Tony nodded and mimed Thor’s stance with his hammer, drawing a bowstring for Hawkeye and moved his hand in quick circles ‘et cetera.’ He laughs, feeling almost giddy. So he _could_ hear through the helmet, but maybe, only memories? Still better than before. 

\--

It had been such a _good_ dream, Tony wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to open his eyes and face reality. Scientific excitement was winning out though, he’d _had the dream again_ and while he didn’t want to jump to conclusions, it was hard not to. He felt the current of data flowing through Extremis pick up a little. 

Two nights ago, he’d begun his experiment, taking the mirror to the lab and scanning for anything and everything he could think of. While the results and initial diagnosis completed, he’d slept in his room with his helmet on, monitoring his sleeping environment to create a control condition. He’d had a nightmare. Happy, croaking weakly at him about Extremis from the hospital bed where he’d spent his final days. Tony had been glad to wake up from that. A dreamless sleep might provide an actual control measure, but short of being knocked unconscious, he wasn’t sure how to make that happen.

The previous night, he’d replaced the mirror in his room. The tests hadn’t found it to be anything other than old and ordinary. He hadn’t lived through everything he had to still think everything was what it seemed, but he was optimistically hoping that its effects were benign. After all, every time after seeing the mirrorscape, he’d awoken feeling rested and refreshed. 

As he’d hypothesized, sleeping by the mirror correlated with the dream. A basic tenet of science was that correlation was not causation, but in his gut, he was certain the two were linked. The mirror was the key to the mystery.

Unfortunately, the other pieces of the puzzle were eluding him. Curious, he delved into his memory to where he’d dreamed of filing away the scans he’d made in the mirrorscape. Non-existent. Well, it had been worth a shot. He sets the real-world data to process.

The room monitors show no disturbances across the multiple filters he runs the footage through. No substance has been pumped through the vents, no sudden energy signatures, just him sleeping on the bed. He wishes there was a way to look less ridiculous sleeping with the helmet on. Then again, no one else was going to see this footage.

The real-world data from his slumber finished compressing and he looked it over critically. No abnormal patterns or anomalies. It was reassuringly similar to scans of neurotypical sleeping brains he’d copied through his resources, and especially regular when compared with his nightmare about Happy. He rations that the physically peaceful night’s sleep was likely why he felt more rested, not because he’d visited the mirrorscape. 

There’re a few more conditions to run, but he’s got his fingers around the edges of the puzzle and he not about to give up.


	7. Chapter 7

“That will be all. Leave Doom’s presence.”

Seething, Arnim Zola leaves the room and heads to his quarters. How dare Doom? To be treated like a brainless lackey to be kept in the dark! Shut out from seeing the main operations! Absolutely _insulting_. Especially from one scientist to another. 

He wars with the decision of calling Red Skull to complain and gives in to the petty desire. After all, Skull had been the one who’d asked him to assess the dictator and Zola half believed Doom had already found the Captain and was just toying with him. Perhaps when the ruler had outlived his usefulness…

“I don’t like him. Will you need Doom taken care of once he completes his task?” Zola chirps in greeting once Red Skull responds. A little gleeful at his imaginings he added. “It would be a pleasure.”

“I take it he does not have your approval. Very well. Patience, I already have a plan that will assure Doom’s silence,” Red Skull smiles with stolen lips.

“What plan,” he snaps. Did Skull foolishly believe him to be as placid as his figure suggested? 

“Ahh, ahh, it is but a small matter. I did not wish to trouble you with the details,” Skull placates. Seeing that the reassurance is not enough, he offers. “You wish to know?”

“Indeed, Skull,” Zola says testily.

“As you please,” Skull acquiesces and after a brief hesitance, begins. “A certain peer of ours has been hard at work running drug trials. I’ve been helping to provide a supply of subjects. Extrapolation from their previous requests, the next requested trial size should be rather large.”

After a pregnant pause while the information sunk in, Zola smiled with all his teeth. “Acceptable.”

\--Tony--

It’s been two weeks since he’d begun to research his recurring dreams. The demands of his jobs are getting to him, not that he had any plans of admitting that to anyone. Every spare moment since he’d figured out the physical mirror was the key, he’d been consumed by the mystery. Diagnostics weren’t telling him much, but in his gut he had a feeling it was all connected to Steve’s death. 

Looking into the mirror’s history was a dead end. Circulating a sketch of the thing through both historians and the antiques market had been fruitless. There’d been little consensus even regarding when the mirror had been fabricated. A few had offered to take a look at the piece in person, but Tony was reluctant to allow them the access. The only thing that most agreed upon was that the mirror was beautifully crafted, but beyond that, it had little value. Tony had noted the appraisal while privately disagreeing. What struck him most was one snobby antique collector’s comment though, that without being restored, it was essentially worthless. He’d inquired as to what restoration the woman meant and she’d pointed out that it appeared as if some of the decorations had fallen off from the piece over time. 

“There’s a glaring hole,” she’d sent back the photo with a circle drawn about the base of the mirror. “You could fill it with a paste jewel or a better replacement, but I doubt it’d raise the value much.”

With little more to go on, he’d taken to sleeping by the mirror for as long as possible. He’d even taken to the occasional nap, something he’d only ever done between bouts of drinking back when he’d kept time by the bottle. Anything to maximize his chances of seeing Steve and gather more data. Reliving good memories was an extra bonus. Sometimes Steve never showed and he’d wait by the portrait until he awoke, or he’d wander off and peer into other mirrors. Between the increased amount of sleep and his talks with Steve, he was feeling better than he had in a long time despite the stress of his ever-increasing workload. 

\--Tem--

The dispersal system was complete. They were on the cusp of a new world, a stronger human race. The only thing that remained was to take the safety off the gun. 

He gets into character as he hears the knock at his door and calls for the visitor to enter.

“You wanted to see me?” Maya asks.

“Yes. Can I get you anything first? Tea? Coffee?” He offers politely, though he lets a frisson of nervousness run undercurrent. 

Maya reacts just as he wants, concern peaking. “That’s okay, what’s the matter, Tem?”

“Thank-you for seeing me,” he stalls, taking a breath. This isn’t supposed to look like he wants to ask her what he’s planned to. “As you know, I’ve been in contact with the project sponsors.” He hesitates until she nods, fully attentive.

“They told me…they’re demanding that the Extremis code be opened.”

“What? That’s insane!” She bursts out. “Did you tell them –“

“– that it was ridiculous to? Of course!” he agrees, mirroring her passion.

“It’s much safer this way,” she insists, confident. So young and naïve, thinking the world needed safety. 

“I completely understand and I’ll be sure to ask them to reconsider but…”

“But nothing, Tem! I’m not opening that code.”

“They just want the reassurance that they have the means to combat it,” he tries.

“And if that happen, if someone manages to crack the code then fine, I will too. But not until that happens,” she says resolutely. It’s a shame she’s so headstrong, stubbornness is an unbecoming look for her.

“It’s only a precaution; the government wants full understanding of it. They have a lot of dangerous items. Just think of anthrax,” he implored. The soft sell first, let her dig for the answers she wanted. Let her fly into his web.

“This isn’t anthrax and you know it,” she bites. “This is something I created, and if it gets out into the world, it will be _my_ responsibility.”

“The same government that got you here is the one requesting this,” he reminds her. “You trusted them to this point, could a bit more really hurt?”

“Yes! Of course it could! I’m not trying to be difficult –“

“– but you are!” It was time to lose control, just a tiny slip so she’d inquire more into why the ‘situation’ was so grave. He slaps his palms down on his desk. 

“What’s gotten into you?” she jumps and he takes a modicum of pleasure from her fear. Hopefully, like a spooked animal, she could be herded onto the desired path. At this point, nerves on edge, perhaps she’d be led by compassion take his suggestions to heart.

“I – I apologize,” he deflates, returning to the mild-mannered gentleman she knew him as. “I trust your judgement and I understand…the potential. I wouldn’t have even asked if it were just myself on the line… but they’re threatening to pull all the contracts they have. It would put the company out of business. I’d be alright of course, but all my employees…” 

Maya Hansen is silent, aghast and obviously conflicted. He temples his hands to cover his mouth as he delivers the hook. “And I thought perhaps…it is just _potential_ after all.”

Finally she asks. “They would actually do that?”

“Undoubtedly. As you already know, the death of Steven Rogers was a harsh blow to the country and the government is keenly interested in the creation of a new super-soldier. Hence their generous support of your…relocation and the resources devoted to this project.”

Maya reflected on his words for long moments. “What you’re asking of me…”

“It’s a lot, I know and a terrible burden,” he fakes empathy. “I understand if you won’t…”

“Just...” she holds up a hand. “Give me a little time to think about it.”

“Of course, my girl. Take all the time you need,” he soothes.

She leaves his office deep in thought and he lets the persona fade from his features while watching her through the cameras. Had he oversold it? He’d waited some time already, so a few days, even a week or two might be acceptable delays, but no longer than that. The longer the wait, the higher the chance a cog might be thrust into the wheel of the plan. 

Ahh well, if she took too long, he’d have to resort to different, less pleasant tactics. Necessary evil to create a better world.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for minor mentions of past alcoholism

There are giant lizards in the middle of the city. When he gets to the scene, Ms. Marvel’s already there and they fall into rhythm, giving back better than they’re given. He loves this. The hum of power through his veins as his repulsors load, the smooth dance of fire, evade, save. He doesn’t worry about Steve, his dreams, his next meetings here. Only battle strategy, what will down their opponents fastest, finding who created them and who set them loose. Against easy foes like this, fighting is fun. 

Getting a new alert, he diverts some of his attention to a SHIELD team in the neighbouring state who’re dealing with hostage situation. It was too bad he couldn’t be in two places at once. Would it be well-received if he started sending out unmanned suits with AIs or LMDs in his place? He could program them to feed in through Extremis. But really, just because it was feasible didn’t mean it was necessarily intelligent to begin maintaining multiple lives.

His screen flashes a warning. [Explosion imminent. Approximate blast radius. 1 mile. Civilian casualties expected.] 

“Ms. Marvel, that lizard’s gonna blow. Any ideas?” Tony calls, cycling through his arsenal to see if there’s something he can cobble together fast enough to rectify the situation.

“I can probably absorb it,” she growls, already flying towards the creature.

It wasn’t a one-off lizard explosion. Thus, they discovered the creatures would detonate if badly damaged. Unfortunately, they didn’t have other means to contain the threat.

Solution 1: Ms. Marvel absorbs the blast. She can do it, but she’s not too happy about the mess. So they mostly go with Solution 2: Throw the lizards really high in the air. They take turns, alternating between smashing and tossing the carcasses into the sky until the city’s safe. It’s actually rather joyous.

The kid’s behind the attack turns out to be no villain, just a student who got a little too excited by Dr. Connor’s old research. Leaving the kid in police custody, he figures his work here is done and fires up his boots. Maybe he can help with the hostage thing before returning to the Helicarrier. 

“Iron Man!” Ms. Marvel demands, catching his suit at the wrist. It doesn’t sound like the first time she’s said it.

“What is it?” Every moment’s delay is another kilometre he could’ve flown.

“Running away before cleanup?” She raises an eyebrow.

“SHIELD will take care of it. Good work today by the way. Sorry about the,” he waves a hand in her general direction. She was still splattered with some of the first dead lizard.

“Comes with the job,” she dismisses. “Did you hear a word of what I said?”

Honestly, he hadn’t. “Sorry, there’s a situation down south. Anything important? If not, I was going head there –“

“They still need you?” She releases the suit.

Reluctantly, he admits they don’t after a quick reassessment of the current data. It should be over by the time he’d reach them. Actually, they should be done in 5, 4, 3, 2. “Situation’s just be taken care of.”

“All okay?”

“Yeah, all good.” And thank-god it was because there’d been children involved. They didn’t need anything to remind the people of Stamford again.

She nods. “Anything else you need to run to?”

He powers down his boots suspecting she wants to talk. “I can spare a few.”

“Great. Let’s talk someplace with a little more privacy?” They are gathering some attention so she leads them into a nearby park. “Mind putting your faceplate up?”

He clenches his jaw in the suit, remembering how Steve had asked the same thing of him when they’d talked in the mansion during the war. Purposefully, he relaxes his mouth before flipping back the faceplate.

“What’s up Carol?”

“You look terrible,” she says bluntly. 

He’d be offended, but it was likely true. Though he’d been sleeping more, solving the mystery had been taking more priority than personal grooming. “Thanks, I’ll have words with my beautician.”

“I mean it. Have you been sleeping alright? I heard you started taking naps.”

“Uh-huh.” More than ever before. Was this all she was going to ask him?

“Ugh, I sound like my mom. I am not your mother, Stark.”

“I know Carol,” he answers with a smile and teases. “And I’ve been eating my veggies too, ma.”

Carol looks unimpressed. “You were distracted most of the fight.”

“Was I? I thought we did alright.”

“We did fine, we were just smacking down some super-sized lab lizards, but if we’d been up against something smarter,” she hesitates for a fraction of a second before stating like it’s a matter of fact. “You were sloppy today.”

Tony tamps down on the part of him that wants to snap back at the criticism. With measured calm he apologizes. “I didn’t realize.”

She sighs. “It almost felt like. Look, Tony, I won’t be mad or anything. But you appointed me leader of the Avengers and you’re still a part of the team. So, I need to know, are you holding up?”

“I’m great,” he lies. He thinks he knows what she’s asking and it’s not fair. He doesn’t want to think about his guilt over Steve’s death, not right now while he could still be riding the high of the fight. He deflects. “Thanks for today. It’s nice working with someone who remembers to try to limit property damage. ”

“Part of the job,” she waves it off, knowing what he’s doing. “Look, we’ve been friends for a long time. I’m not going to push you, you know what you’re doing. If you need to talk, I’m here. If you’re getting the urge…you know I’ll do what I can and you know where to go.”

He realizes what she was actually asking. If he was drinking again. “I’m not!” He swallows ‘I wouldn’t’ because they fought the same addiction. 

“I know,” he says quietly, suitably chastised. This isn’t something they joke about. He knows if he starts again, he won’t stop until he sees the bottom of the bottle. He doesn’t say to her what he said to Steve’s body. That if he’s made it through all this, he’d probably stay sober for the rest of his life. They both know that no matter what they think, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Anyhow, he’s grateful she’s keeping tabs on him. He made a good choice assigning her as the Avengers team leader.

\--Doom--

The arrogant fools thought they could double cross Doom with impunity! After it was they who’d come to beg his aid after damaging the machine they’d traded him for? Behind his metal mask, Doom sneered at the security feed that showed the fat head and the Russian, possessed by Red Skull, conversing. To discuss such plans within his very walls! He has half a mind to separate Zola’s brain from its metal casing but such simplicity was beneath him. There were sweeter ways to squeeze the fruit of revenge and he intends to extract every drop. 

He’d found half of what they were looking for under their very noses already. Not the half they were interested in, but it was more than they’d been able to do on their own. They’d wanted the body of an entity lost in time and space. A challenging task, even if you knew what you were doing. They hadn’t had a clue, but he did. After all, the machine was of his design, no matter how they’d modified it. They’d been so focused on the material, they’d ignored a simple, basic principle. Minds and bodies were naturally paired. Find one and you could find the other.

Returning to his time platform, Doom opens himself up to the teachings he’d learned from Morgana le Fey and thrusts out his will to grip the lost mind and brings it closer. He stops just short of pulling it through to the physical plane where it couldn’t exist without a host. He weaves an enchantment over it to see it more clearly and to anchor it. No sense in having to expend the same amount of effort to finding it again in future. Once satisfied, he releases it, finally studying the unfortunate soul curiously.

When he returns to the physical plane, his laughter echoes out around his castle laboratory. So he was right about whom Skull and Zola were after. He thinks he knows just what he’ll do. Poetic justice.

\--Steve--

There’s a warning tug at his chest followed by a sharp yank and glass shatters. The floor falls out from under him and he’s _falling_ for a terrifying eternity, air punched out of his lungs as the air goes cold, so cold. He’s suffocating and he prays _no, not like this_ because after fighting so long and trying so hard, _this can’t be the end_. 

Then he’s suspended weightless, tumbling slowly, before floating to land like a feather. 

As suddenly as it began, it’s over and he has company. 

Red Skull, sneering and terrifyingly satisfied, fist still clenched, withdrawing from a punch. His opponent snarls but stays down. It takes him a few moments to recognize the man, but there's no mistaking that it's Aleksander Lukin.

Steve hadn’t forgotten the face of the general who'd reactivated the Winter Soldier. The details of the case that had led him back to Bucky would stick with him for life.

The three of them are in a glass chamber that looks like a mirror image of the one he'd fallen from. They move like him, as if they're aware of their surroundings too. He doesn't know if he should be thankful or not because they don't seem to notice him. 

He approaches cautiously and waves his hand in front of Skull's face as sound filters back into his ears. Hesitantly, he tries to lay his hand on the Skull’s shoulder and sucks in a breath as his hand passes through. Skull continues monologuing without a sliver of acknowledgement.

“It would be so much butter if you stopped fighting. You’ll get your body back when I’m done with it. Have I not assured you of this before?” Skull says with some annoyance.

“Easy for you to say,” Lukin spits. 

“I assure you, I don’t _want_ your body forever. But I’ve still been taking caring of it,” Skull smiles sickeningly. “I do not know precisely what would happen if you were badly damaged just before your return but I would suspect it would rather unpleasant.”

What Skull’s says finally convinces Steve that he’s really, truly close to the real world. If Red Skull and Lukin could argue over Lukin’s body and who was in control of it, then they had a connection to Earth. By common sense, Steve must be in a similar situation. But he had nowhere to go, his body had died. And as criminal as Lukin is or was, he’s not like Skull; he wouldn’t steal someone else’s body.

“How much longer until you find the Captain’s body and leave me be?” Lukin huffs. 

The Captain?

“Not long now.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you Skull. For my sake though I suppose I must hope you won’t screw up again," Lukin smoothly insults. 

" _I_ have not screwed up," Skull snapped then smiles slowly. "The plan will go smoothly though. It must. And when it does, I look forward to watching you dissolve into madness."

"From having had you in my mind for so long?"

"No. There is a plan is in motion, not of my own, one of a madman."

"You are a madman."

Steve agrees. 

"Ahh, but I am not one who would bring the world to its knees, reducing the human population to only those who possess a certain gene sequence. One that your body does not have. This madman believes that by doing so he will bring about the new age of man. I have some distaste for his methods, but the Mandarin is too strong to stop. And, his plot presents a unique opportunity for me. In the wake of the destruction, the world will weak with chaos and primed for takeover.”

“You’re insane,” Lukin whispers. Steve thinks that’s old news, but he worries too. If what Skull says is true, somebody needs to stop it. “So that’s what you need the Captain’s body for? It has the gene sequence?”

“You’re catching on. Yes, the body of a super-soldier is both strong and equipped to tide the change.”

It _is_ his body they’re talking about. The one that Skull was trying to locate for takeover. Well that was…gross. So he was alive? Or his body was still useable somehow? Maybe being here, he was supposed to learn how to stop Skull.

“How do you know so much about this plan? Working together?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“How will this ‘Mandarin’ react when your double-cross is discovered?”

“You are a businessman if you have not forgotten already, and the Mandarin is becoming a customer. I will provide him with a location, Latveria, to conduct the final stage of testing the bioweapon. No double cross, I’d like to see it in action, and then I’ll take the country out of Doom’s ridiculous metal hands.” 

“I am reluctantly impressed. Though really, the least you could do is give me a corpse of my own to possess to live through this change. Payment for having taken my form for so long,” Lukin complains. “Perhaps one of the Latverians who survive.”

Steve loses any sympathy he had for the Russian then. 

“Stop being so troublesome and I’ll give it some thought,” Skull smirks, walking to look out of one of the glass walls. “I’ve wasted enough time here, your body needs appalling amounts of sleep. There are things to be done.”

Steve watches closely as Skull touches the pane, closes his eyes and vanishes. His gasp goes unnoticed by Lukin who is grumbling to himself. Now curious, Steve approaches one of the glass walls. If he’s in some sort of ghost-like state, maybe he can leave too? 

Steve wonders what Skull saw, all he sees in the wall are reflections of himself. Touching it, he finds it smooth and cool. His hand doesn’t go through it and while that’s a disappointment, it’s minor compared to the discovery he makes. He’s wondering where the Skull went, and suddenly, he can see outside, an office without personality, and Lukin calling…Zola? He feels like a fly on the wall, watching and listening like a master spy.

By the time the video call ends, Steve is all the more certain that somehow, someway, he needs to get the intel to Tony. If there’s anyone who could piece everything together, who could save the world, it’s him. He wonders how Tony is, what he’s up to. 

The viewfeed changes to a dark staircase leading to a basement. There’s a dim glow at the bottom. He doesn’t know what it means.

“South clear!”

“West clear!”

“North clear!”

“East clear! Stealth mode off.” 

“Wait!”

It’s too late though, the SHIELD agents appear spread about the basement just as creatures surge out from the shadows.

No, not creatures, humans. They look deformed, mad and unholy. One’s punch misses an agent and the metal door it hits gives to the fist like cardboard. Steve hears a familiar sound and then a red and gold blur is doing amazing things in the tight quarters, knocking out opponents with a precise application of force. 

“What are they?” an agent asks, sounding shaken when the battle’s over.

“Monsters,” another replies.

“No, they’re human,” Iron Man says and the faceplace comes up. He looks sad. “Poor souls. I don’t know if what’s been done is reversible. Treat them carefully.”

“Of course, sir. We just saw what they could do,” the second nods, gesturing to the crumpled door. “We’ll make sure they go in high security.”

“Good, and make sure they’re treated with human dignity. Somehow, I don’t think they volunteered for this. Let’s see if there’s any data left in this place. We need to find out who’s behind this.”

The agents split up into teams, some to deal with the captured assailants and others for data. This is a well-trained team. Tony stations himself by the main computer console and gets to work. 

Steve wonders if Tony can see him and starts because Tony’s head jerks, looking at one of the broken screens. The screen that if Steve was actually there, he’d see his splintered reflection in. Tony frowns, shaking his head minutely and goes back to mining for files. Steve’s hand leaves the glass and he stares at it, possibility clamouring his thoughts.

He tries again, touching the glass and focuses on his desire to see and be seen by Tony. It’s been moments for him, but it looks like a different day for Tony already. He’s washing his hands in the sink of a sumptuous bathroom. Steve stands behind him to the side, trying not to feel like a creeper. 

“Tony?” He tries. “Can you see me?”

Tony looks up and pales. “No, no, no. It’s not. You can’t be.” 

Tony blinks and runs the back of his hand across his eyes, a mistake as he wasn’t done rinsing the soap off. “Ow, fuck!”

“Sorry!” Steve raises a scoop some water up and help, forgetting for dear moment that there’s nothing he can do, and with the motion he loses the connection again. “Fuck.” 

\--Tony--

So, he may have been going about his investigation pointlessly. The detriment of being personally attached to a case. It’s okay though, or, it’s probably okay, because he’ll admit it to himself now and better late than never. If he’s honest, he’d just been living in denial to cling onto hope. Dreams and nightmares, reoccurring or not, weren’t reality. Pretending they were was an indulgence he had to give up. 

Data was impartial, it couldn’t lie and right now, it was telling him that his dreams didn’t exist. He remembered dreaming though, so he was faced with two unhappy possibilities. He thinks again with more than a little distaste that SHIELD likely needed to employ a magic practitioner. It had been proven to be a weak spot in their defenses, and right about now, he wouldn’t completely mind having his room and psyche vetted for outside interference. Because if it wasn’t magic, he was going completely insane.

Because he’d seen Steve in the bathroom mirror at the Senate. And he didn’t remember falling asleep.

\--Tem--

He sighs, watching Maya tiptoe out of the compound like a fugitive. She makes it out of range of his cameras but it’s a simple enough matter to activate the bugs he had on her. She doesn’t head for the nearest bus shelter, but for the phone. 

She looks around warily before dialing, covering the keypad. As she waits for whoever it is to pick up, she clutches the mouthpiece close. The audio receptors on the bugs are awful, a trade-off for their convenient size, so most of the conversation is lost. The snippets he catches from her end and her expressive features are telling enough though. Anger, shock, worry and anger again with a side of fear. She looks calculating and determined as she returns. A woman on a mission.

It seems he hadn’t been convincing enough. On his way to intercept her he relays the order for a new room to be prepared for her. Waiting patiently, he considers what illusions might efficiently break her resolve. He wonders if force would be more effective against her. It’s not his preference. People lied under torture all the time. It was better to break their wills and have them voluntarily give up information.


	9. Chapter 9

“Reed, you were looking into other worlds for solutions weren’t you? Tony asks casually while the man is deeply engrossed in data. It’s a dirty technique, but highly effective. He’d learned the trick from watching Sue while he and Reed had been designing the Negative Zone prison during the war. At certain stages of his workflow, Reed would answer whatever questions he was asked without thinking about it. It was a terrifying weakness, but since few knew about it, and even fewer would understand what Reed said depending on the question they asked, it wasn’t too worrisome.

Or what Reed didn’t say. Tony watched with equal parts fascination and revulsion as the man’s index finger folded backwards and Reed used the new join as a replacement finger while the tip directed Tony to a large machine by the wall. Some notes lay atop its console, looking abandoned. Catching a hint of movement from the shadows on the screen above, Tony didn’t start when Reed’s head, stretched above him. The man’s eyes weren’t looking at him and they looked odd. Tony guessed Reed was still working on whatever his current project was, and changing his prescription by reshaping his pupils to keep his screen in view while he talked at Tony.

“Earth-3490 avoided the war. Remarkable solution but with low likelihood of being practical for our reality,” the fingertip taps a sheaf of paper and then retreats along with Reed’s head.

“Thanks,” Tony says to the vacated airspace. It’s one of the most coherent and straight-forward answers he’s ever heard from Reed. Perhaps working on his marriage with Susan after their terrible separation during the war was improving the man’s people skills.

Picking up the papers, Tony settles into the chair by the messy console and begins to read. It’s a summarized list of alternate realities, narrowed down to the ones where superpowers existed, and the outcome of their wars. He feels sick reading most. So much death and unhappiness. When he gets to Earth-3490 he stops.

**Captain America, Steve Rogers, marries Iron Man, Natasha Stark. War prevented.**

What he’d dreamt…Setting the paper down on the chair, he clears the console and fires it up, intuiting through Extremis how to make it function. He finds the archived log and clicks on Earth-3490 to replay Reed’s findings. 

There’s a couple on screen, bride and groom kissing passionately. It’s his first time seeing this footage but he already knows what their faces look like before they break for air, smiling like they’re going to burst before the clip ends. It’s the couple from his dream, the almost-Steve and female him.

And if they existed in another reality, maybe he wasn’t insane. Perhaps, through science or magic, he really was viewing alternate universes through the mirrors in his dreams. What did that mean for the mirror that showed his Steve though? 

Was it even really his Steve? He’d been shown memories and they’d conversed as well as they were able, but it was all things he could’ve dreamt, remembered. He needed a question, the answer to which only Steve would know. But what could he ask that he didn’t already know? It had to be something he could ascertain after, or he wouldn’t be certain the answer wasn’t fabricated from his own mind.

\--Red Skull--

“Doom has found the Captain’s body. Come at once,” Doom commanded imperiously in a message.

Skull smiles. Perfect. Though why Zola had not informed him of progress having been made was curious indeed. He sends a message to the scientist and frowns at the lack of response. That was uncharacteristic of his associate. Zola was quite literally attached to his technology. He gives it an hour and when no reply comes, his suspicions grow. While he didn’t much care about Zola, he was uneasy what the lack of communication implied.

He replays Doom’s message. He’d been so joyous the first time he’d missed that the dictator had found the identity of who he’d been searching for. Doom rarely sided with Captain America though, so he was still uncertain why Doom might try to trick him. 

Had he been betrayed? 

\--Tony--

He’s _flying_ over the rocks, and it’s exhilaration. Like he’s breathless and high and his veins are pumped through with adrenaline. He sees the path he’d laboured over in aerial, sets his arms by his sides and his legs together, then powers up the rocket boots to ascend the cliff. He crests the plateau and hovers midair, taking in the expanse below.

The mirror inlaid sky never looked so beautiful. He retracts the faceplace to see it unfiltered. Before his eyes, the colours intensify, warmly approving like a pleased mother. 

Steve’s mirror shines brighter than the rest and his navigation system grumblingly relies on ratio distances to find the most direct path to the familiar slate rock. He lands on it and breaks into a smile because for once, Steve’s already there.

“Hey Steve,” he says softly.

The blond has a look of concentration on his face that morphs into surprise.

“Tony! But I didn’t…huh.”

It’s Tony who’s surprised now. “I can hear you.”

“Me too. I think I’m doing that. Something happened on my end. I can’t leave exactly, but I can see out? Project myself maybe?”

“Out of?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. When I touch the walls here, I get something like a–a live feed. But it’s almost like I’m there? That’s the sensation at least,” Steve hesitates. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Were you in a basement lab fighting, I’m not sure what to call them, but I guess enhanced humans?”

He has an idea of where the question was leading and he isn’t sure how to feel about it. “Yeah, they were what became of some human experiments. So it was you there? I only caught a flash.”

“Yeah. And in the bathroom?”

“I saw you.”

“Sorry you got soap in your eyes,” Steve grimaced sympathetically.

“Yeah, I had to go back to the meeting with red eyes, the board probably thought I’d gone off for a crying jag or something,” Tony huffed. “So there’s a chance I’m not insane?”

“Not unless this is a delusion.”

“It could be,” Tony says seriously.

“Then ask me something.”

“Just what a delusion would say.”

“The answer can’t be something you know already,” Steve rolls his eyes. 

Is it only coincidence they had the same thought? “I’m thinking.”

“Alright,” Steve waits then growing a little restless, asks. “Will you tell me what’s been happening?”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“Anywhere. The beginning.”

“Well, there was a big bang,” Tony begins, intending to spin out a joke about Steve’s age. 

“I know,” Steve grimaces. “Those shots hurt.”

That wasn’t the big bang that Tony had meant. When would he learn how not to put his foot in it.

“I can tell you who shot me?” Steve suggests, kindly moving on.

“I know already. Agent 13 right?”

“Yeah,” Steve looks surprised.

“It took me a while. I had a nightmare with you. Well, not-you, you. Anyways, it made me look at the footage,” he explained. His thoughts trailed. Agent 13, Bucky, oh shit. “Uhh, I got your letter by the way. And I did what I thought you wanted…”

Steve looks at him confused.

“Your will,” he clarifies. 

Steve nods slowly.

“I found Bucky. Or more like, I let him find me?” he hedges. Bucky had almost killed him before Tony had been able to get him to listen long enough to tell him about Steve’s letter. “You might not like this.”

“What is it?”

“So, I didn’t think that you, here, could be real. I mean, you were dead. Are dead? You had no pulse. I sat by your _corpse_. Even Wolverine agreed it was you,” he starts.

“Tony,” Steve cuts him off in his cut-the-chatter voice.

“Sorry,” he looks nervous and blurts the rest quickly, half hoping Steve wouldn’t understand but would let it go. “Bucky is the new Captain America.”

“Oh.”

“Look I know it probably wasn’t exactly what you meant, I mean, Bucky thought so too, but really, who else was going to take up the shield? I was going to retire it. Then I got your letter and he was there and the _arm_ ,” Tony stopped rambling for a moment, reverently remembering the mechanical appendage. “It could handle the shield. And it wasn’t as if Bucky or most of our community was going to let just anyone –”

“Tony,” Steve interjected. “Relax.”

He shut up and waited. It was true Steve didn’t _look_ mad, but then, he didn’t exactly look happy either. 

“Guess I should have expected it, you always did like efficient solutions.”

Tony’s not sure how to take that and Steve seems to see it.

“It’s not a bad thing, Tony. Just...very you,” he says with a half-smile. 

He made a dissatisfied sound. Efficiency was great. If you could do two things at one time, why wouldn’t you? 

“I’ll take this as proof that _you’re_ real though and that I’m believed to be dead by the world. Mr. Greenley wouldn’t have made his delivery otherwise.”

Oh! It should have occurred to him before. “I got it!”

“Got what?”

“The question. Your letter came with a box.”

“Yes.”

“I never opened it. What’s inside?”

Steve brow creases. “You never opened it?”

“No.”

“Why wouldn’t...” Steve trailed off and bit his lip. He sighed and said softly. “I could tell you. But I’d prefer if you didn’t open it if you haven’t yet.”

“Why?” Tony frowns.

“If I’m still alive, I don’t want you to see it yet.”

“I don’t know then. _You_ tell me something,” Tony gives up and puts the ball in Steve’s court. He wonders what’s in the box that Steve doesn’t want him to see. If it even is Steve and not his imagination creating a loophole. 

Steve head tips back, thinking. “Did you ever find my diary? Again, it’s not something I really want you reading but....”

“You kept a diary?” Well that was intriguing…

“Guess that answers the question.”

“You can tell me where to find it?”

“It’s in the mansion. It hasn’t been cleared out has it?”

“No,” Tony says, wondering if he should mention that he’d taken the mirror out of Steve’s room.

“The desk in my room. The drawer where I used to put your toolkit? It has a hidden panel.”

“When’d you build that in? I’m impressed,” Tony smirks. “Got the idea from all the spy movies Natasha showed you?”

Steve had been a total sucker for them, coming back after to ask Tony if the gadgets he’d seen in the films existed and if not, hinting how ‘neat’ they’d be.

“Maybe,” Steve didn’t meet his eyes.

“Smart location, the weight of the box would hide the panel from anyone wondering why the drawer was heavier than the rest,” he muses. “So, I’ll find your diary there, huh?”

Steve covers his face with a hand. “I’m going to regret this aren’t I? You’re going to read it all.”

“Well, I gotta open it to make sure you’re telling the truth,” Tony smirked. “Hey, so you can find me when I’m awake now?”

“I think so, but I don’t get to choose where or when we cross paths. I’m not clear on how any of this works yet.”

“You’ll figure it out. The reason I ask though, if I forget this when I wake up, remind me?”

“Yes, of course,” Steve agreed.

“So, where are you?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet. I’m beginning to have an idea though. I’ll look into it after you’re gone. I’m pretty sure I know who’s responsible for putting me here, but I don’t know how. Red S–”

\--Tony--

Extremis is screaming alerts about someone hacking his comm system and there’s an incoming video call from a blocked user which he doesn’t have to actually pick up because Doctor Doom is suddenly onscreen. 

“Good morning Director Stark.”

“What the hell?” He barks. His voice is filtered and he remembers he went to bed fully suited up. It had felt ridiculous at the time, but seemed to be paying off now.

“You took too long to accept Doom’s call.”

“I was _asleep_!”

“That is no fault of Doom,” the dictator declares. “Now, Doom has information for you.”

“Why are you calling me up in the middle of the night to tell _me_ anything?” he demands.

Doom ignores the question. “Arnim Zola has taken up residence in a Latverian dungeon.”

“Great. So?”

“He is charged with plotting against Latveria. His co-conspirator however, the Red Skull, is still at large.”

“And you want me to find him?” Tony’s heart beat loudly. The dream. What Steve had been saying just before he’d awoken. “Red Skull is dead.”

“He is not.”

“And why should I help you?”

“It is not helping me, as much as helping yourself.”

“You’re going to have to –” 

“Doom traded with the Skull for a weapon a while ago, which was used it successfully to take someone who was once quite dear to you”.

“You?! You’re the one who made the gun that –”

“But he bumbled the second portion and made the mistake of planning a double-cross after asking for help again. And he threatened the people of Latveria,” Doom’s metallic voice grew harsher. “So Doom shall renege on his deals.”

“What are you saying?” Headaches weren’t supposed to start so soon after waking up.

“Your precious Captain still lives, mind and body separated in time and space.”

“His body’s buried.”

“Not his real one. That one is yet hidden and what Red Skull seeks.”

“So you want me to –”

“Silence! Enough interruptions. You shall eliminate the threat against Latveria,” Doom commanded. “It is an international concern and the man behind it does much of his business in your home country.”

“And who is this person?”

“Doom has determined that Zola does not know, but it is someone who would do business with Red Skull, or the face of the man he travels under, Aleksander Lukin. More important is _what_ it is: a bioweapon. After successful deployment in Latveria, it will be unleashed upon the world.”

“I haven’t heard of this,” Tony says. Unless…

“Then Doom suggests you look into it, and quickly. In exchange, should I locate Captain America’s body, I will return it to you.”

“What about his mind?”

“That has been found already.”

“Where?” He asks, trying not to sound overeager.

“There is nothing _you_ can do. He’s on another plane of existence,” Doom says condescendingly. He adds as an afterthought. “He is remarkably lucky. Most minds do not latch on to a physical object and are near impossible to locate, floating in limbo for the rest of existence if freed like his was.”

“So, he’s trapped somewhere?”

“For the time being.”

“And you can put the two together.”

“Mind and body call to one another when separated. If they’re brought close enough together, they will reunite on their own,” Doom sounds bored.

“Why do you need me to take care of this bioweapon?”

“Doom does not _need_ you,” he snapped. “This is courtesy. If you are unable to handle it, Doom will take care of matters himself.”

“And you won’t give Steve back and you’ll make international trouble too I suppose,” Tony didn’t let his sigh carry through the helmet speakers. “I’ll look into it.”

“See that you do. And when you locate Lukin, Doom would like to handle him personally. His fate and that of your Captain’s are currently intertwined. Not that he seems to realize it,” the metal mask hides Doom’s face, but Tony can imagine the smug smile lying underneath from the tone alone.

Doom ends the call without another word and Tony seethes for a few moments before settling back on his bed and debating what to do. And how were Skull and Steve’s ‘fates’ intertwined? By the time he makes the conscious decision to go along with what Doom asked at least for the moment, Extremis had already cued the search process. He finds the miniature Doombot that had attached itself the video link feed and finds a containment box for it. Usually, he’d just crush it, but maybe there was a way to reverse engineer the signal. It was a sophisticated bit of tech after all. Sighing, he sheds the armor and heads to his bathroom to take a shower and under the scalding stream, he remembers that he has a diary to look for too. 

Looked like he’d have to cancel hanging out with the SHIELD tech boys today.

\--

Aleksander Lukin’s name had sounded familiar and now Tony knew why. He leaves a coded message to Natasha asking if she can get Bucky to contact him. Tracing Lukin’s financials, he finds an immaculate record. Running a hand through his hair, he grimaces. Something was off there too. Oh, all the pieces added up, but that was what made him suspicious. Like a cooked book it was too smoothly perfect on the surface. He starts the process of obtaining Lukin’s personal and company’s records, taking a few more shortcuts than he usually would, a bad feeling creeping in his gut. 

While the data is being mined, he flies to the mansion, braving the memorial wreckage with determination. Locating the desk, he retracts his gauntlets, gently opening the bottom drawer and taking out toolkit. Running his fingers along the insides he still almost misses the fingernail grooves of the false base. Having trouble lifting it out due to their shallowness, he wonders how Steve would’ve done it, as they both had short nails. He realizes he’d already had his hands on the solution. Popping open the toolkit with nostalgia, he selects two of the most slender flat-headed screwdrivers and surgically displaces the sheaf of lacquered wood. There’s a wooden grid below it, _for support_ the engineer concludes, and he removes that too.

He doesn’t quite believe it, but there’s a book under it, just as promised. Reverently, he takes it out and opens to the flyleaf.

**This book is the private property of Steve Rogers**

Flipping through the pages, he crooks a smile, the writing is unmistakably Steve’s. He tries not the read anything, uncertain if he wanted to add diary snooping to his list of transgressions, though words jump out at him. His name and the names of various Avengers, locations, and of course, dates. It really is a diary. He carefully tucks it into the storage compartment of his suit and sets the drawer back to rights.

Flying back to the Helicarrier, it hits home that dream-Steve is real-Steve and if Doom is to be believed, _alive_. Tony lets out a whoop that hurts his own ears in the closed environment of his suit and spirals in the afternoon sunlight, laughing to himself. He gets back to his office to find a mountain of a paperwork awaiting his attention, the research on Lukin still plodding along. Reality dampens but can’t douse his mood and he works diligently, humming to himself until the research pings complete. He scans through it, disappointed, but not surprised when nothing pops out. 

\--Red Skull--

Doom had found him out and now he would have to avoid crosses paths with him _and_ locate Captain America’s body through his own means again. He curses. At this rate he really will have to settle for someone inferior with the genes to make it through the change and then switch hosts again. How troublesome.

He needs an idea of the timeframe he’s working with. Pasting a false smile on his face, he makes a call to Tem Borjigin under the guise of the overeager devotee the Mandarin believes him to be, and begs for a tour of the facility. It’s granted and Skull nods to himself. An ideal opportunity to hinder the project’s progress if called for.


	10. Chapter 10

He’s talking with Maria Hill about the man suspected of being the terrorist groups’ sugar daddy when he gets the message. The activities had slowed in the past months, a good thing for the populace and SHIELD’s workload, but worrisome if it meant he was gearing up for a big show. When asked, the man’s secretary said that he was on an extended vacation overseas. Tony’s sources confirmed the man had indeed gone overseas, but it didn’t sound like much of a vacation. He’d been looking for someone, and the last place he’d been traced to was a prison he’d been visiting. Tony had called in a favour from a local friend who’d done legwork. The prison had tried to cover it up, but eyewitnesses could be bribed and the reports weren’t pretty. The man had gone in with his team of bodyguards, looking for an inmate who, according to prison records, didn’t exist. Two men had walked out, one of the bodyguards and a stranger. The rest, including the sugar daddy, had been quietly carried out in body bags in the middle of the night. However, the man’s business accounts still seemed to be in use.

“Look, I agree it’s suspicious, but it happened out of our jurisdiction,” Maria states. “Just be glad the terrorist attacks are over and let it go. We can keep an ear out for this guy but that’s about it.”

“We need to do more. If it’s a superpowered person, which is entirely likely given the _slaughter_ that happened, we have to be on alert.”

“We don’t know who it is we’re looking for; we _can’t_ be on alert all the time because _we already are_ ,” Maria argues. “It’s not ideal, but we don’t live in a world with limitless resources. We’re not equipped to follow up on every missing persons case. Look at the numbers in this country alone! We can’t help every individual; we have to look at the big picture.”

“I _am_ looking at the big picture and it’s telling me that this is important. This needs to be looked into,” Tony insists. Natasha pings him directly, telling him that she’s picking him up for dinner shortly and he better be alone and ready. 

[ETA?] he asks her. 

[6.]

He cuts Maria off mid-retort. “Excuse me, I’m afraid I have to step out.”

“Why? There hasn’t been an alert,” she points out.

“Non-SHIELD one. Sorry, but you have to go,” he begins subtly herding her out the door.

“You alright Director?” Maria asks.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I’m perfectly fine,” he insists, missing the suspicious look on her face.

“You’re late,” Natasha says when he hurries out 5 minutes later.

“You said six minutes,” he complains, sliding into the car.

Natasha drives it off the Helicarrier pad without looking, raising a perfect eyebrow at him as she fires up the car’s hover engines before they hit a dead drop.

“I was with Hill, alright,” he grumbles.

“Excuses,” she shakes her head, but the corner of her mouth quirks up. 

The car makes the barest dip when they turn a corner dangerously near the edge of building. If Natasha ever drove a racecar because he think she’d be a champion. A second later, he forgets to ask her because the backseat comes down and Bucky crawls through. 

“You should work on that landing James, felt like an elephant jumped aboard,” Natasha comments in greeting. Though she’s criticising, Tony notices both corners of her lips have curved upwards slightly. Personally, Tony couldn’t say when they’d gained the company.

“Yes ma’am,” Bucky drawls, utterly failing to hide his adoration of her even when he shifts his cool gaze to Tony. “Stark. You needed a word?”

He supposes he should have guessed earlier that the two were involved. Common history and all that. What would they have done if they’d had to make the choices he and Steve had? Would Natasha still have chosen registration? He turns his thoughts away from the scenario. Hopefully the two of them would never have to face a rift like that. They’d had hard lives and deserved every bit of happiness they could eke out.

“Aleksander Lukin,” he says. Bucky’s expression hardens. “Is he really the Red Skull?”

“I figure so. I was after him before I was after you for Steve. I found Lukin, and he was a dick, but then he started talking to himself and then it was like he transformed into Skull. Mannerisms you know? Acted like it and had the same connections. You takin’ him down?”

“If I take what you say as confirmation, yes.”

“Let me know if I can help. I owe him one.” The close lipped smile on Bucky’s face looks like it belongs to the Winter Soldier more than Captain America. 

“Will do.”

“That all?”

He debates telling them about Steve and decides not to unless he needs to. There’s no way to prove Steve really exists to them, not really, and if he tried he’d probably sound insane. 

“For now, yeah. You settling okay?”

“You know I am. I don’t need to be checked up on,” Bucky says tersely

“I know, I wasn’t trying to,” Tony grimaces. 

“Would be hard for you not to with all the headlines feeding into your brain, right Tony?” Natasha adds. He doesn’t know if she’s defending or subtly warning him.

“Yeah,” he agrees loosely.

“What do you feel like eating?”

“You were serious about dinner?” He hadn’t had company for meals in ages apart from a few business dinners.

“Just deciding where to drop you off,” she replies.

That made more sense, though he feels the sliver of disappointment slide under his skin. “Doesn’t matter where you leave me. I can suit up and fly back.”

“I know,” she rolls her eyes. “But when was the last time you ate?”

He’s not quite sure and his silence speaks for him.

“That’s what I thought. Still same old Tony,” she says humorlessly. “You want Thai?”

“Burgers.”

“Healthier.”

He sighs. “Indian?”

“There’s a good place over there,” Bucky indicates to Natasha.

She sets the car down smoothly. “You still forget to carry cash?” 

“I’ve changed, I’ve got my wallet,” Tony grumbles before nodding goodbye. “Thanks, both of you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m serious, if I can help, drop Nat a line for me.”

“See you.”

\--

Back in the Helicarrier, he wolfs through takeout while reviewing what he knows, creating a mindmap. The Red Skull is, or is at least very connected to, Aleksander Lukin. Zola had been working with Skull, but was currently detained. A yet to be determined bioweapon mastermind was working with him. According to Doom, Steve and Skull were also linked, suggesting a Skull-Lukin-Steve connection. Doom had also said that Steve’s mind and body had been separated with a weapon he’d designed, and Skull wanted the body. That implied that Faustus must also have worked with Skull to brainwash Agent 13 and have her use the weapon on Steve. Crossbones’ involvement in the ‘assassination’ had to have been because he was dating Skull’s daughter, Sin. 

Doom had only spilled the beans now, because Skull tried to cross him on a _second_ deal. So Skull had needed help because he’d screwed up what? Tony snorts, seeing the connection. Skull _still_ wanted Steve’s body which meant he didn’t have it. The fake assassination had been successful, so he must have lost it at some point after. Doom must have been helping him locate it. Why continue looking for Steve when he was backing out his deal with the Skull? Because he wanted Tony’s help? No, he must be trying to use Tony in some way. Perhaps he thought dealing with a bioterrorist was beneath him? That sounded more likely. Though, replaying the audio from the morning, Tony realized Doom had said he was reneging on his deals, plural. Since his first deal with Skull had been for the weapon, maybe Doom was trying to reverse the damage it had caused by restoring Steve. An honor thing. And if Doom really managed to do it, Tony wasn’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth.

Looking over the map he wonders where to get started because it really looked like a whole new list of tasks. Then he gets a SHIELD emergency alert. He supposes he should be grateful he’d had a quiet day up ‘til that point. 

By the time it’s dealt with, he’s more than ready to crash. He leaves his gauntlets, boots and helmet on for ease of navigation in the mirrorscape, but removes the rest to better relax into the soft sheets.

\--

He’s just atop the vertical incline, appreciating the patterns the mirrors make in the sky – 

\--

The Avengers alarm blares and he blearily opens his eyes and heaves himself up. It’s been less than two hours since he lay down. Nothing to do about it now, he was needed. Up and at ‘em. 

\--

He’s just done dealing with the post-battle damage to his suits and is storing away a set of newly repaired armor in his office when Steve appears like a reflection on the helmet.

“Tony?” Steve’s voice is faint. , Tony thinks for a split second.

But Steve is no ghost. Tony grins. “Hey Steve. Found your diary.”

“Gonna tell me how 13 year olds are less sappy?” Steve raises an eyebrow, looking resigned to the imagined ribbing.

“That was _one_ time,” Tony protested. 

“After I told you I loved you!” he retorted indignantly.

“You brought me flowers and chocolate and wine _and_ the most _ridiculous_ Will-You-Be-My-Valentine card then _cooked me dinner_. There were candles and mood music and _slow dancing_. The bed had friggin’ _rose petals_ on it. _Rose petals_ , Steve. I still don’t know what teenage girl you hit up for ideas – ” 

“You ate it up, you _loved_ it Tony,” Steve looks smug. 

“Of course I did! You – you _romanced_ me,” he cries in exasperation, pointing a finger at him accusingly. He was being over-the-top and he didn’t care that much. A sure sign he was suffering sleep-deprivation. Too bad he couldn’t be sure they’d continue this conversation when he got some shut-eye. 

“That’s what you do when you love someone,” Steve retorts. 

Tony’s heart stutters. He wants to ask if – but he doesn’t have that right anymore. Lost it when he betrayed Steve based on calculated percentages.

“So, I’m real,” Steve changes the topic and Tony doesn’t know if he’s grateful or disappointed.

“Seems that way,” he confirms, pushing out of a smile. 

“Which means that what I heard is probably true,” Steve mutters to himself, grimacing. He looks Tony directly in the eye, posture squared like it’s a mission-briefing. “Got some intel you need to hear.”

Tony snaps to attention. “Lay it on me.”

“Alright. From what I overheard, there’s some sort of mega bioweapon in the works.”

“I heard, looking for who’s got it.”

“It’s the Mandarin.”

“The Mandarin?! But he’s dead…”

“I thought so too, but not-being-dead seems to be a trend. He’s out there, and so is Red Skull.”

“Aka Aleksander Lukin?”

“How’d you know?” Steve looks surprised.

“Doom.”

“Doom?”

“He’s the one who woke me up the other day, sorry about that by the way. He said he’d found out Skull was planning on offering up Latveria as a testing ground for a bioweapon and didn’t take to that kindly. He didn’t know it was to the Mandarin though,” Tony explains. “Anyway, he said Skull was Lukin.”

“Well, that’s sort of true I think,” Steve acknowledges. “Skull’s…possessing his mind I think? But Lukin’s still there, or connected like Skull, just not in control.”

“You know where they are?”

“Not physically, you’re the only one I’ve seen so far,” Steve shakes his head.

“Then how?”

“Since the change over here, the one that lets me find and talk to you like this, I gained Lukin, and Skull sometimes, for company wherever ‘here’ is.” 

Tony makes a face and Steve snorts. “Yeah, not who I’d have chosen for roommates either, but they don’t seem to be able to see me.”

“What are they doing there?” he asks curiously. 

“I think this is where they decide who’s in control of Lukin’s body? They fight sometimes which usually ends with Skull whaling on him for ‘resisting.’ And when I first got here, he was reassuring Lukin he’d give him his body back later. Don’t think Lukin necessarily volunteered his body for Skull to use.”

“Who would?” he scoffs before musing. “So, you’re in like, a holding cell for minds.”

“Could be. I preferred when my mind was in my own body,” Steve says dryly. “Speaking of which, that’s what Skull wants.”

“I heard that too, it’s what he was working with Doom for. He ‘lost’ your body somehow. And before you get the idea that Doom’s changed his ways since you died, he really hasn’t. He was the one who made Skull the gun that did this to you in the first place.” 

“Nice to know who to punch if I get the chance.”

“You’ll get your chance,” Tony promises. “If they don’t find you, I will. Why does he want your body though? ”

“I think he wants it to be his new host body,” Steve grimaces.

“He _would_ prefer to wear your pretty face,” Tony mutters to himself.

“More like he’s gotten used to having a serum-enhanced body,” Steve dismisses the compliment. “He’s a survivor. The bioweapon will kill anyone without a specific gene sequence. Lukin’s body doesn’t have it and I guess I do.”

“And he’s probably sick of looking at his hideous mug,” Tony adds again, wanting to see Steve smile.

“Tony,” Steve shakes his head minutely, fondly exasperated, which Tony takes for a win. Then his image flickers and Steve glances about, on the alert. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah, what was it?”

“I don’t know, maybe a warning? You’re getting fuzzier” He looks worried and speaks quickly, his reflection cutting out more and more often. “If the weapon’s deployed, there won’t be much opposition to Skull trying to take over the world. You gotta cut him off. I don’t have anything more concrete, but I’m guessing the Mandarin does business with ‘Aleksander Lukin’, not the Skull, so that might be something to start with. I’ll keep an ear out and let you know if I hear anything else.”

“Got it, thanks,” Tony nods. “You can count on me.”

“I know.” He sounds sincere, like he believes in Tony completely. It catches him off guard, how it feels just like before, Steve’s faith buoying his spirits.

Steve seems to think of something but just as he’s drawing breath, the reflection fritzes out completely. Tony’s left looking at the helmet, seeing his own face where Steve’s had been. He makes a promise. “I won’t let you down again.”

He gets to work, pulling up the mindmap, adding the Mandarin under the bioweapon maker. It didn’t make sense, the Mandarin was into magic and science, his expertise wasn’t in biology. And both Steve and Doom had said that Latveria was to be the final _testing_ site. So there had been past trials?

Steve had said…he backs up the security footage from the armor he’d ‘decorated’ his office with and is only half surprised that there’s no trace of Steve on it. He makes a note to try scanning while they talked next time, if he could detect an energy signature maybe he could trace it back to locate Steve. He closes his eyes, racking imperfect memory for the particular phrase.

 _A specific gene sequence._ That was it. That was what he’d been missing. A bioweapon effective against everyone who lacked a _particular gene_. Maybe the gene that he, along with 2.5% of the population had. If what he was thinking was true…

\--Tem—

“No, I’m not opening it,” Maya says, pale, but resolute.

He sighs and puts her to sleep. Another failed situation to convince her to give up the information. It had to be willingly given. She’d proven resistant to bribery, pain, beliefs that she was terminally ill; a whole gamut of illusions.

She’s been holding on for a while. Much longer than he’d anticipated. She was strong and he respected that. It made sense that the creator of a masterpiece like Extremis ought to have forte. But it was inconveniencing humanity’s progress and his will was greater. He’d mastered the ten rings. Had managed to feel them out from where they’d been hidden, scattered across the globe after he’d lost his hands. The rich pawn who’d collected and returned them to him had even thought it was all his own idea. Maya Hansen would break eventually.


	11. Chapter 11

Tony attends the ‘important’ morning meeting on far too little rest. They’ve barely begun when he realizes that while the people here were powerful, most were just blowing hot air, posturing to make themselves look good like politicians. He glances at the clock, wondering if there’s a way to politely excuse himself without offending anyone. Time seems to crawl. The screen of the tablet he’d brought to take notes had gone dark because the last interesting thing that had been said had been where to find the coffee ‘after we get some business done.’ As if they were discussing anything that couldn’t wait for coffee.

Then his morning gets better because someone calls for a break and for _some mysterious reason_ the machine gets finicky right after he’s finished with it, delaying everyone else’s return. _Ahh, quiet_ , he thinks, returning to the room, clutching his mug like the lifeline it is. And Steve is there, smiling hesitantly up at him from his tablet. 

“Oh, meeting room. Bad timing, sorry. I’ll find you later,” Steve’s expression deflates a little, looking about and realizing where they are.

“No! Now’s good. Now’s fine,” Tony protests hurriedly. He may or may not surreptitiously disrupt the elevator too via Extremis to buy some extra time. “What’s up? Find something new?” 

“Not much, no,” Steve apologizes. “I should probably go.”

Well, there went his excuse to run out the meeting. “Stay for a few, until people are getting back with their coffees.”

“Okay,” Steve smiles softly. “Just for a bit.”

“Great.” He looks a little closer at Steve’s face. “Hey, you doing alright?”

“Fine,” Steve lies.

“Steve.”

“Alright, you got me. Just. There’s nothing to do here. You know, when I was reliving my memories, the glass room was an escape. Then I ended up here, on the other side –”

“Other side, huh?” the puns slips out.

“The shape of this room is like a reflection of the old one. A sort of irregular dome,” Steve explains. 

“Not just calling it that ‘cause you’re alive now?” he asks with raised brows.

“Pretty sure I was alive there too if I am now,” Steve rolls his eyes. 

“Well you never know.”

“…I don’t know how to take that. Anyway, so short of watching Lukin, plus Skull when he pops in, and stalking you, sorry, things are pretty dull.”

“I’ll try to provide quality entertainment.”

“You just work on saving the world.”

“Yessir.” He hesitates. “Have you tried looking in on other people?”

“Yeah, zip. It’s strange though, I almost get the feeling that it wants to show me? Please me? But it can’t?”

“The room has feelings?” Now that was going a little further than Tony wanted to think about. 

“I don’t know, it’s a sense thing?”

“Ahh, you looked like you wanted to say something last time?”

“Oh. That.” Steve takes a breath and straightens and Tony knows immediately he’s not going to like whatever’s coming. “I wanted to tell you. If Red Skull gets my body, don’t hesitate.”

“What?! I’m not going to kill you.” He’d just figured out he hadn’t really killed Steve before. He drops his voice, hearing the sound of approaching chatter, adding plaintively. “I only just got you back.”

“No, Tony. I need you to promise. If Skull gets me, you shoot to kill. He doesn’t get to use my face, my body, to do evil,” Steve looks at him steadily. 

“Steve, I don’t think I’d be able to.”

“Just promise to try. Really try. Promise me he won’t get to use me against the people I love. Promise.”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut, it feels like an ocean of hurt to even think it. He opens them to tell him no, he can’t, he doesn’t know what he’s asking. Steve’s eyes tell him he knows exactly what he’s asking and that he thinks he knows what Tony’s going to say. Steve looks _sorrowful_.

“I promise.” The words feel rough, but there’s nothing else he can say.

“Thank-you.”

He swallows hard against the urge to beg Steve not to let that happen, as if there’s anything _Steve_ could do to prevent it. If he could, he wouldn’t have asked. It’s up to Tony, and maybe Doom, to make sure it doesn’t come to that. 

“Stark-tech failing you, Tony?”

Steve vanishes. Tony doesn’t want to turn around because he knows exactly who that snide voice belongs to. Also, the question doesn’t make sense. 

“What?”

“Your screen’s all dark,” Justin Hammer points out, all buddy-buddy. “Need some help? It’s okay, we all call up tech support sometimes. We all try to bargain with machines.”

“We all call up tech supp – What?” Tony makes a face. He invented things. He was the one who _got_ called. 

“So, who are you talking to?” Hammer perches on the arm of his chair and Tony wishes he could give the man a shove. It would be so easy. So satisfying. 

“None of your business,” he grits his teeth.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Hammer reassures. “There’s no shame in it. I’m just curious, who does the great Tony Stark call for help?”

“I don’t,” he snaps. 

“Ouch. You really should learn to share, Tony,” Justin admonishes.

\--

Mrs. Rennie isn’t at her desk. There was someone in his office. Faceplate down, he flies in on stealth mode, prepared to fight. He stops abruptly seeing who's sitting patiently on his couch. 

"Doc Samson! What are you doing here? I could've shot you," he says, turning off the stealth mode. 

"Hello Tony." The good doctor says unperturbed. Tony supposed that to someone who'd fought the Hulk, a few repulsor blasts weren't that threatening. 

This isn't going to be a fun talk, he can tell. 

They exchange work-style pleasantries and then Samson’s questions lead into the real reason why the man’s here. 

They think he’s cracking. They, being a portion of the U.N. Security Council, his sort-of bosses. 

“I’ve reviewed video records of your behaviour, You seem to fall into brief dissociative states,” Samson tells him. “It’s as if you’re reacting to things only you can see.”

“Are you suggesting that I’m hallucinating?” Tony asks, flicking back through what SHIELD cameras would have seen.

“Are you?”

“No, I’m not,” he says decisively. The footage doesn’t look good, and he’s only found the stuff that looks like he’s talking to objects so far. Without context, he does look rather insane. 

“That’s good. I’d hate to diagnose the Director of SHIELD with schizophrenia.” Is that a threat? Samson always sounds so calm. “Could you remove your helmet?”

“Why?” Steve, then Carol, now Samson. Honestly, what was this obsession with asking uncomfortable questions face to face?

“Just humor me,” the psychiatrist is polite, but Tony knows that it isn’t really a request.

This is going to look so bad. It’s not like he has a choice though. And telling the truth about Steve, Red Skull, the Mandarin and the mirror will just make him seem insane. There’s not enough evidence yet.

He’s assigned two weeks of ‘personal leave’ with regularly scheduled therapy sessions with the Doc. That, he dislikes, but can handle. What he hates is more problematic. The ‘psionic resonance dampener’ he has to wear like someone on house arrest. It’s that or be carted off to the psych unit where he definitely wouldn’t be able to do any good. The device is locked onto his ankle, break and tamper-proof. It curbs his connection to Extremis and with it, his ability to use his newer suits. 

\--

He has to get off the Helicarrier. He’d provided them with enough ‘proof’ that he was losing it and he has the feeling he’ll only give them more ammunition if he stays. Anyways, he’s supposed to be on ‘personal’ leave. He packs up some clothes and possessions and sends them to one of his non-SHIELD residences. He doesn’t go there though, he wants an anonymous place. He sends a quiet apology to Steve that he won’t be joining him in his sleep. The mirror is too large to bring along.

Mrs. Rennie is a godsend. She sends his ‘classic’ car, as he codenames an old suit, and the files he wants through his company, not SHIELD, with little more than a teasing question about his vacation preferences. He might not be able to play with much tech with the anklet, but he’s resourceful, and despite what people said, he wasn’t allergic to paper. He could do the research he needed to; he was just stuck with progressing at a slower pace for now. 

He can’t help feeling like a conspiracy theorist as he recreates his mindmap on a wall of the rented motel room. This is exactly why he couldn’t just stay somewhere people knew him, he thinks, looking at the tacked up news clippings and post-it notes connected with strings in multiple colours. There’s one important thing he’s still waiting for confirmation on, but even presuming he’s right, there’re still threads to tie up. Lying back on rough sheets he goes over the data again and again, he’s still missing something.

When it finally comes to him, he feels like he could smack himself. If this is truly as far reaching a plot as he was coming to believe, then he should have been looking at connections between it and other open cases. Namely, the missing persons one. Maybe there was some wisdom in what Maria had said, to look at the numbers in this country alone. She’d meant they couldn’t help every lost soul, but that wasn’t exactly what he was aiming for at the moment. The data was essentially public, and with his gift for numbers, Tony finds the trend within the hour. 

He stares at the settled digits and swears. Just as he suspected, the numbers rise and fall predictably until recently, where there are increasing spikes. They weren’t random increases either. No, they followed a pattern. One he was used to seeing from the FDA. Drug trial numbers.

\--

The news only gets better. Or worse depending if you were considering it from the missing persons perspective. The report had finally come in, helpfully forwarded onto him for which reason he was definitely going to ensure Mrs. Rennie obtained a raise. 

He’d run a DNA comparative test between himself and the human test subjects they’d captured. The results stated that only the stable subjects had had the matching gene sequence. Just as he’d suspected, it _was ___Extremis.

Which meant Maya Hansen was alive. There was no one who knew Extremis better than she did or who could’ve developed it to a final testing stage in that he knew of. It was a small field. She hadn’t been creating it to be a weapon though and if he knew anything about her, she certainly wouldn’t have approved it for human testing without fixing the failure rate. But he’d seen the bodies of the failures, or sometimes only parts of them, and they almost certainly outnumbered the violent, zombie-like ‘successes’ that had attacked. Maybe the Mandarin was manipulating her; it was one of his specialties. 

There were two ways he could see to track the weapon. A) Search for Extremis signatures, B) Locate Maya. Option B was probably the most surefire way he had now without access to his usual tech. And come to think of it, he knew exactly where to start. With the man who’d told him Maya was dead and had _given him photos_ to prove it. 

\--

He’d learned his lesson this time. Instead of rushing straight into threatening important people, he’d gone to Doc Samson to see if the anklet could be removed. It would simplify matters a whole lot not to be encumbered pursuing what was clearly a hot case. Samson tells him even if wanted to take it off, he couldn’t. The thing’s timelocked. Still, it wasn’t a wasted visit. Tony tried coming clean, as much as possible. He attributes some of his knowledge to his not-hallucinations. Pointing out how they’d led him to concluding Agent 13 had been brainwashed into shooting Steve, and emphasizes how they had never led him astray.

Doc Samson thinks Extremis is causing it all. That the heavy influx of information constantly being processed is too much for his consciousness, and so when something important is found in the excess, it’s wrapping itself up to be expressed through his subconscious. Tony thinks there might be some truth to that when it came to his nightmares, but he wasn’t telling Samson about Steve and how that was most definitely not his subconscious. 

When he tells Samson about Maya, Extremis and who he needed to ask some questions to, the doctor agrees to come along and referee. Apparently, Secretary of Defense, Jack Kooning had been on the committee that had called for Tony’s enforced leave, and been the one to push it through, calling in Maria Hill as his star witness and provider of the damning security footage. 

“Why aren’t you helping me?” Kooning had shouted at the psychiatrist, sometime between Iron Man’s verbal demands and being suspended off his balcony. Classic suit or not, Iron Man could be an intimidating figure and Tony was making full use of that.

“As you stated to the committee, Tony Stark is insane,” Samson had said coolly. He clearly wasn’t a fan of being used. Tony was impressed with how calmly he played witness. 

When it was clear Kooning wasn’t going to give up the information, or it looked like Tony was about to go too far, Samson stepped in. The doctor applied his craft smoothly, finding a photo of a younger Kooning with Captain America, reminding the man of the good man he surely _wanted_ to be. Shortly after, suspicions confirmed, Tony flies off with his doctor’s blessing. 

Time is not on his side and he knows it. 


	12. Chapter 12

This suit is so _old_. He can barely remember its functions, has forgotten what it's equipped with and what he only added with later suits. He supposes there's some irony in him, a futurist, being stuck with so many things from the past. His suit, his villain, and while he's not stuck _with_ Steve, he's still stuck _on_ him which might be pathetic and sad but it was Steve Rogers, _Captain America_. He wasn’t just going to get over a guy like that. 

[List: Arsenal] He thinks at the suit before remembering he's not interfaced with it and has to give the commands verbally. His new jewellery is a curse and just might kill him in a fight. 

He’d have to take that chance though. It already had been a few days since Maya had called Kooning to ask him why he wanted her to remove the safeguards or open up the Extremis code. Those weren’t things he’d had asked for. He’d told her to go back and pretend everything was as usual.

Kooning hadn’t realized he’d been dealing with the Mandarin. It was only somewhat reassuring to know that the Secretary of Defense hadn’t stooped quite so far as to work with a terrorist to try to get a new supersoldier.

\--Tem--

He has scant notice before Iron Man crashes through the wall of the lab but he uses the time intelligently. Given the rushed attack, what he has in production, if not who he is, has already been discovered. Thankfully, he has bases across the globe. An idea comes to mind and he decides quickly. He’ll sacrifice his likely compromised cover to preserve the formula and buy just a little more time. That’s all he needs after all. 

\--Maya--

She was safe. Or safer than she’d been she supposed. On her way back to jail no doubt, but after what she’d done and what she’d been though, it was probably what she deserved.

It was all her fault, she’d been the one who hadn’t looked closely enough at the opportunity and data to see it for what it was. Too good to be true. Tem has used her research and done human trials. Physically, there’d been some success. Mentally…she shuddered thinking of what she’d seen. How many people had lost their lives because of her?

Iron Man had come, blasting through to the lab and then the doors of the room that had become her cell. He’d fought Tem, who in addition to not being the kind businessman she’d thought he was, had turned out to be the Mandarin. Then, the Mandarin had loosed monstrosities to attack Iron Man and escape in the chaos. Monsters she had had a hand in creating, however unintentional.

“Maya, I need to you open up Extremis,” Tony asks. He looks strained and tired, but still cuts a handsome figure in business suit. 

“Tony, no, you know what that means –” She protests, sticking to her guns and hating herself in the face of his desperation.

“I do. And I wouldn’t ask if the Mandarin hadn’t done it already.”

There was no way he had. “How could he?”

“He left you there Maya, to die along with the facility. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t need you anymore, right? I’m surprised you’re alive to be honest. The old man’s getting sloppy.”

“You know I didn’t know Tem was –” She asks haltingly as she mulls over his reasoning.

“Of course,” Tony looks surprised. “You were working on something that could help the world.”

“Exactly. And that’s why I can’t, I _won’t_ open it. You know firsthand what it could do!” she implores.

“You know what he plans to do with it? He’s going to unleash it on the world. Bring about a ‘better human race.’ The only chance we might be able to develop a vaccine in time is if you open up the architecture. A vaccine _can_ be developed right?”

“Yes, it could.” She’s never seen Tony this close to begging. She wavers with indecision. If it was true, if Tem, if the _Mandarin_ had really managed to remove the safeguards off Extremis…. She listens to her gut. “But what if he hasn’t unlocked it?” 

\--Tony--

Tony lets out his aggravation with growl. He should be tracking down the Mandarin unhindered. He should be ensuring Extremis’ containment. 

\--Maya--

“Do you know who that is?” Tony asks.

“Yes, Shearing. Tem – The Mandarin’s – top geneticist.” The man’s dressed like a convict, handcuffed to the table.

He presses play and turns up the volume. She listens to her former colleague extol her work and the challenge it presented before he’d finally broken through. 

“Is that enough proof?”

Her gut tells her no, but she was looking at hard proof. Shearing had done it. He’d unlocked Extremis and put in in the hands of a madman. And could she really trust her instincts? They’d led her to fake her own death and work for a terrorist despite having the best intentions.

She settles at the computer and with a deep breath, does what logic tells her is right.

\--Tony--

His Lieutenants look at him, eyes sharp. They’re in as deep as he is now and he’s grateful they’d decided to side with him. The world was still here because of their actions, though not everyone seems to realize that yet. It was the problem of being too good at your job, people stopped being appreciative when you did it well.

“Okay boss, what do you need from us?” Dugan asks.

“Maria, trace the Mandarin. Most of it will be under the name of Tem Borjigan. Phone, bank, credit cards, the company, anything and everything.” 

She nodded, professional and succinct. 

“Dugan, we need to put a fork in the proceedings as soon as possible.”

“How do you want me to play it?”

“Nick Fury dirty. Whatever’s called for. I’m guessing you’ve got the dirt to make things go how we need.”

“I do. The skeletons in some of their closets still have meat on the bones,” Dugan smiles grimly. 

\--Maya--

“There, it’s done,” she sighs, pushing back from the computer reluctantly and handing over the freshly burnt data disk. “That’s everything.”

Tony takes the disk, peering over her shoulder smiles. “I’ll take it to the lab myself. Thank-you, child.”

Tony has never called her that in his life. 

“No,” she breathes. Her heart skips a beat.

“That was truly some brilliant coding.” 

The illusion drops and nearly everything changes. The computer and the disk in the man’s hand are the only constants.

“How?” she gasps in horrified surprise.

“A little mental manipulation. Forgive me, child, but it truly could not have been done without you,” the Mandarin actually sounds contrite. 

She stares at him, aghast that she just gave one of the world’s foremost terrorists everything he needed to misuse her life’s work in the very way she dreaded.

“I hope one day you can appreciate what I’m doing for the world. You are lucky and possess the rare gene sequence to see the fruits of your labour. I myself, unfortunately, will not survive the culling.” He looks at her like a proud, slightly wistful, parent. “Thank-you for all your work, Maya.”

\--Tony--

Use the words nuclear bomb and suddenly, everyone was having a fit. It had been a _clean_ nuke for crissakes. A contained blast with no radiation fallout. No negative consequences except to what had been in the blast radius which was now obliterated. 

He should have named the nuke something else. It might have saved him from having to deal with the current farce of a trial. The U.N. Security Council was composed of people who didn’t seem to understand that the fate of the world was at stake here and they were wasting precious time. 

He was sorry for the once human subjects who’d been at the facility, but he knew there was nothing he could’ve done for them. Extremis had already tried to rewrite them and there was no way to reverse that. 

And most of the people here weren’t really concerned the lost lives. They just wanted a simple story to give to the public. That Tony Stark was insane and had ordered a nuclear bomb to be fired in an act of terrorism. 

They refused to listen when he explained that he’d _had_ to nuke the facility to destroy the quantity of Extremis enhancile it had housed. That the Mandarin had been producing and testing it with the blessing of the U.S. Secretary of Defence to create a new super-soldier. That it had been a _clean_ bomb.

They definitely didn’t want to believe that Iron Man had fought the Mandarin at a disadvantage and that was why no one important had been apprehended. That the Mandarin was still at large and in possession of the formula which he was going to use as a biological weapon. That it would wipe out 97.5% of the human race and the clock was ticking.

He hated that Steve had been right to worry about red tape slowing superheroes down from doing what needed to be done. 

\--Doom--

 _If you wanted a job done right, you had to do it yourself_ , to rely upon clichéd sayings. Tony Stark had found the weapon and Skull’s playmate, the Mandarin, but failed to eliminate the threat. And now he was mired in the inefficient political dealings of his supposedly great country. So Doom would have to take care of matters himself. How typical. Disappointingly predictable, really.


	13. Chapter 13

So for the moment, he wasn’t Director of SHIELD anymore, just a superhuman fugitive racing against the clock to save the world. The question was, where to go? He wondered if this was how Steve had felt before, when he’d sided against registration and realized it was him against the majority of the world. Though for the moment Tony didn’t have the extra pressure of being hunted by former allies for the moment. But that would come if he took too long.

He was still marvelling at how Maria and Dugan had put their careers on the line to give him this chance – the faith they were putting in his hands – to find and stop the Mandarin. 

“Iron Man.” 

Speak the Cap.

“Long time no see,” he greets the apparition in the glass of the pod that was carrying him to his suit.

“My schedule picked up,” Steve shrugs. “Apparently our little sessions are bit of an energy drain on whatever Skull’s using the control Lukin. He found me out, sort of.”

“Are you okay?” Tony asks, heart in his throat.

“Just fine. Whatever wavelength stops him from laying a hand on me, but he found some way of sending me into some of his disturbing fantasies.”

“…Is that what it sounds like? Do I wanna know?”

“No, not like that” Steve rolls his eyes, but his lips have quirked into the start of his ‘oh-Tony’ smile. “Think of Nazi Germany with Skull in place of Hitler and me as the number one enemy, loose on the streets.”

“You sure you’re not in Hell?” Tony jokes.

He shakes his head. “Wouldn’t be seeing you if I was in Hell.”

Tony doesn’t know what to say to that. Steve always did know how to use sincerity like a weapon to render him speechless.

“Fought through it. I’m back now and he just left,” Steve says it like it isn’t a big deal. Tony’s certain it had taken far more effort than he was letting on.

“Small mercies,” he tries, wondering if there’s a chance in hell – pardon then word choice – that he sounded unaffected by the earlier, borderline flirtatious, comment.

“Okay, enough chatter,” just like that, it’s back to business, evidently. “Skull’s on his way to meet the Mandarin now, so wherever you’re headed, I’m hoping it’s where they are, and be prepped to deal with both hostiles.”

“Well that’s fantastic news. Yay. Thank-you. I will do…just…that…” 

[Incoming Communication from Deputy SHIELD Director Maria Hill: Accept/Reject]

[Accept.] 

Dugan’s profile picture appeared. “Sending you the locations of Mandarin’s subsidiary companies. Analysts are still trying to narrow down where he’s most likely to have fled to.”

“Thanks. Are things holding?”

“Hill’s keeping them occupied and it’s a nice, jurisdictional mess. It’ll be ages before they sort it out.”

“Perfect.”

“Good luck, boss.”

“I’ll see you once you’re done the battle okay?” Steve says when the pod comes to a halt.

“You don’t have to go,” he suggests though he really shouldn’t go into battle distracted

“I’ll try to stick around for a bit and keep watch.”

“It’ll drain the Skull a little that way, right?”

Steve smiles slowly, a fraction devious. “Think so. I’ll see if I can work up a little distraction for you, Shellhead.”

He swallows the lump in his throat. It feels so very much like old times. “Thanks, Winghead.”

Captain America disappears from the screen, data taking his place. Tony scans through it and racks his brain. If he were the Mandarin, what would he need? Where would he go?

Suspicious activity pops out at him. He wraps himself in old armor, powering it up and punching into the heavens. His course is set. A heat signature in a Chinese hospital that had been shut down. Halfway across the world because good guys never seemed to catch a break, or villains were determined to be difficult, or both.

\--Red Skull--

He’d thought he might have to scrap the plan to use the Mandarin and his Extremis plot when his sources told him about Iron Man’s attack. The nuclear destruction was rather interesting though. He hadn’t thought an American would have the nerve to use one again. A surprisingly daring use of force, he was rather impressed. Luckily though, it seemed the Mandarin was as resilient as he, and had escaped with the weapon. 

Even more miraculous, the weapon was finally perfected and going into production. And he’d been invited to bear witness to the dawn of the new world. The Mandarin had contacted Lukin, his ‘loyal disciple’, announcing a changed venue. The weapon was going to be released onto the entire world. Red Skull had fawned appropriately.

Evidently his skills as an actor had transferred with his mind. An excellent observation for when he took possession of Rogers’ body. He’d found the mind inexplicably hanging around the jewel, so surely he’d be able to locate the body. While he’d been disappointed he couldn’t crush the Captain’s mental neck like he could Lukin, he’d been able to create a little distraction to keep his foe occupied.

Still, it seemed like he really might not have time to find and occupy Captain America’s body before the ‘new world’ came. He would see exactly what the Mandarin had planned, and make his decision then. Convince the Mandarin to return to the original plan and patch test the weapon on Latveria, delaying the weapon’s deployment until he was safely housed in the super soldier’s body, or drop Lukin for a temporary host that would survive the culling.

\--Tony--

He doesn’t bother to check his speed much, using his momentum to punch through the window to the room where the heat signatures are coming from. A surprise appearance by Iron Man usually made most people freeze and tactically gave him a good advantage. There’s a lone, unarmed figure curled up in a scratchy looking brown blanket and for a moment, he thinks maybe it’s just some hobo.

“Iron Man,” the person says, wondrous. Her voice is familiar and the blanket unfurls. “Tony? Is that you?”

“Maya!” Sensors say the floor here can take his weight. He lands the suit and pulls off his helmet. 

She looks hopeful then shakes her head. “No, this is another trick.”

 _Another_ trick? “We don’t have time for this. Of course it’s me, Maya.”

“Haven’t I given you enough?” she implores, looking at him, but not seeing him. 

He’s going to lose her if he doesn’t do something fast. Racking his brain, it comes to him, the secrets they’d told each after a drunken night when Iron Man was only a forgotten childhood drawing. He whispers them into her ear the same way he did back then.

“Oh. It really is you,” she exhales, relaxing and hugs him. He blinks in surprise. She wasn’t usually one for casual physical affection.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he agrees soothingly. 

As abruptly as she’d hugged him, she draws back, but keeps purchase on the suit to look him in the eyes, intensely serious. He sees her self-loathing, recognizing the expression for one he’d worn himself in the past.

“Tony, I was so stupid. I gave him everything. I opened the architecture to Extremis and handed it to him.” He’s sure there’s more to the story, but like him, Maya doesn’t try to soften the facts by spreading the blame. “By now, the safeguards must be off. He wants to expose the whole world to it.”

“Tell me where he is.”

“I don’t know.”

“Specs?”

“An airborne strain programmed with the capacity to self-replicate, like the nanocam tech you had me working on before. There won’t be an easy way to stop it once it’s released.”

Tony nodded. “Dugan, Sitrep?”

“Unexpected news. Kooning was found dead.”

“What?”

“His body was located in the Hopeh province in China, near one of Borjigin’s estates. Looks like he tried going after the Mandarin on his own.”

Tony grimaces. “I’ll head out that way then. Send in an extract here for Maya Hansen.”

“Done.”

“Thank-you,” she says as he replaces helmet. 

He takes off the skies. Through his rearview camera he can see her behind him and the suit’s superior sound system picks up her murmur to his shrinking figure. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. I’m sorry.”

-The Mandarin

“And this is the production chamber,” he tells Lukin. His disciple had claimed to share his interest in accelerating the evolution of mankind. In a moment of elation at finally having Extremis in open sequence, he’d thrown his usual reserve to the wind and decided to share some of his final moments with another soul. Lukin had explained to him before that he was terminally ill. Either Extremis would save his life or he’d be dead soon anyways.

“The enhancile is ready then?” Lukin asks, peering diligently in the glass though watching unnamed chemicals being combined must no doubt be meaningless to him. 

“Indeed. It’ll be launched soon.” The first round was being loaded as they spoke. With the self-replication software in place, once those were fired, it wouldn’t matter if latter rounds were disrupted. Extremis would spread across the globe and with it, the dawn of a new age. 

-Tony

“Borjigin’s got a number of facilities in the province. I’m betting he’s at one of them,” Dugan says.

“Agreed. Just gotta narrow down which one, right?” Tony grins.

“You got it.”

He accesses the list of Borjigin’s factories and lets out a whistle. Nearly a hundred. Too many to check out individually. Okay.

[Parameters: Manufacturing. Biological and/or Chemical]

[45 Results.]

Still too many.

If he had an airborne virus. If he was an insane, but brilliant, terrorist. Where would he go? What would he want? What would he need? His mind buzzes with a multitude of possibilities and it feels like his chest is shrinking, suit tightening around him and air, he needs _air_.

He’s panicking. This is not the time to panic. The thought doesn’t make things better. He flies a little lower to where the air less thin and opens the faceplate, gasping and feeling the wind swirling around him, cool and refreshing like after a rainy – that was it!

He closes the helmet.

[Search: Climate modification]

[1 Result].

Bingo.

-Red Skull

As the Mandarin walks him through the facility, he slips in the questions he needs answered. When the launch will be, what places will first be hit, the affected radius. The last answer is the most dissatisfactory. The bioweapon will not be applied like a precision instrument, sent down to neatly targeted areas. No, it was being sent up to the skies, seeded into clouds. 

Then Extremis would quite literally rain down upon the world. The Mandarin seems to be enchanted by the poetry of it. 

“In many religions and beliefs around the world, there is a story of a great flood. A disastrous event caused by the gods that drastically altered land and populations. There is no reason to wash the world so completely now, progress _has_ been made since the times where humans were little more than animals in caves. Thus, this time, there will be no flood, but a rain to rinse the weak from the world.”

And once it came down, he’d be out of time to find and claim the Captain’s body. Red Skull considers the feasibility of taking the Mandarin as his next host as he follows him the next observation point. Though older than he would like, it was an appropriately strong body. He was going to have to take out the terrorist at some point anyways. However, there was the danger that the Mandarin’s strength of mind might keep him from seizing control. Also, mixing the power of the gem he was using with the ten rings might prove incompatible. Such risks and rewards to weigh.

\--Doom--

He’s considering entering the facility to take care of matters himself, and perhaps take possession of the research and weapons within, when his armor informs him Iron Man is incoming. What fortunate timing indeed. He’d be just in time to catch the Skull finishing his little tour with the Mandarin, judging by the feed he was receiving from the tiny Doombot he’d tagged the Skull with. It was a shame that particular model had only built for tracking and surveillance. Some of his others could have plugged themselves into the computers and brought him all the knowledge worth siphoning.

\--The Mandarin--

Tour ended, he leads his guest back to his office for refreshments. 

“I have a little surprise for you, my child,” he tells Lukin genially.

“What is it?”

“The results of a test.”

“I believed you claimed there was no longer a need to test the virus?”

“A different test. I took the liberty of running one on you.”

“On me?” His disciple sounds tense.

“Yes, my child, to see whether or not you will survive to see the new world. Do you wish to know what they say?”

The man is quiet. He wonders what he is thinking. While he waits for the decision to be made, he opens the envelope containing the news.

“I do.”

“Very well,” he smiles and hands over his gift. “I am pleased you chose to face forward so bravely.”

The man extracts the paper, strangely nonchalant, and seems to barely read it before tipping his head. His lips thin and he sounds almost ironic. “Just as I thought.”

For the first time, Tem finds himself slightly disturbed by his company. With a bland expression, he plucks the results to read them himself. Lukin will not survive. Alas.

“Are you disappointed I won’t be joining you in the new world?” Lukin asks.

“I am disappointed, yes but,” he begins. His phone rings. “Ahh, excuse me.” He listens to the news with a smile. The Extremis filled missiles were prepped. “Load them and prepare to launch.”

“Yes sir.” The line clicks off.

“It’s beginning?” Lukin asks.

“Very soon,” he agrees. “If you have any affairs left to get in order, now would be the time.”

“Ahh, I see.” 

It starts then, a feeling of pressure at his mind. 

“I suppose I should then, indeed. You’ve forced my hand,” Lukin says coldly.

“What do you mean?” He hides his growing wariness. This feels like a mental attack. Is it Lukin? The timing is too convenient for it not to be. But he is a mere human. Background checks had stated former military and dealings with criminal organizations. No training or even interest in the psychical or mystical arts.

“I have…an ability.”

“Oh?” Had he somehow masked his power? Tem’s pulse quickens involuntarily. Lukin is getting oddly close. He feels for the aura of his ten rings, aware of where each looped through the skin of his spine, ready for his use. A literal backbone of power.

“Or rather, this does.” Lukin pulls a beautiful gem from the pocket of his trousers. 

He wonders why he did not feel it before, attuned as he was to his surroundings. Perhaps it could only be sensed when activated. It is fractionally larger than the stones in his rings, but size did not reflect power.

“Did you know you were dealing with Red Skull, Herr Mandarin?” Lukin says with a triumphant smile.

Now that is a surprise. How intriguing. And distasteful. Red Skull’s monologue was giving him ample time to prepare. How dull. This wouldn’t be a fight at all.

“With this, I will take you as my new host with which to see the new world,” Skull brandishes the ruby triumphantly.

He gives slightly to the first mental assault before shaking it off. Lukin’s face screwed up in concentration. While he feels the next blast of will directed his way, he’s unaffected. He lets the silly creature try to force his way into his mind, then try slithering like the snake he apparently was. 

The phone rings.

No more playing then. He directs a fraction of his power into force and hits Lukin twice, once to daze him and once to propel him back some distance.

“Yes?” He answers the phone.

“Ready for launch, sir. Just awaiting your codes.”

“Then by all means, let it begin,” he says benevolently. He awakens his screen and navigates to the launch program.

“Yes sir.”

He finishes keying in the codes and pauses, savouring the moment before setting the end of the world in motion. “It is done.”

“Countdown has begun,” his unwary servant says. Another who would not survive the day, not that he knew it.

“Good work.” He hangs up the phone and approaches Lukin. The man seems to be coming to. He crouches down, gripping him by the hair. ““This is a great day for humanity. Now what shall I do with you.”

“Let me go, please, it’s Red Skull you want and he’s in the ruby, take it.” The eyes that look up at him have nothing of their previous deviousness. Lukin looks desperate as he presses the gem into his hand. 

Surprised and unprepared for the assault of his senses, his grip on Lukin lessens. The man bolts, but the Mandarin cares not. He can hear the Skull, railing at the defenses of his mind, louder and stronger than before. Proximity can count in magical matters.

He concentrates, mentally tracing his opponent. As he creates a form to do battle on the same plane, he notices another familiar figure a dimension away. He wonders what will become of Captain America once the Mandarin has dealt with the Skull.

Red Skull hits him, mad grin on his face. “Coming to my stronghold? Not so smart, Herr Mandarin. Have I not already proven my superior skill? After all, you believed me to your loyal disciple.”

He punches back with double the strength. “Indeed, but no, you were the foolish one. You cannot win against me.”

“I shall. I must. Had you given me more time, I would have found a different host, but with that phone call, you are the closest choice,” Skull is warier now as he fights back.

The Mandarin keeps the villain down absently as he mulls over the words. Then he laughs, and opens his arms. “Very well Skull. Join me.”

Red Skull seems perplexed, but doesn’t hesitate to jump into his mind. He burrows like an animal, rooting through for answers, rearing up to try to take control. The Mandarin bats him down. 

“No, no, Skull. Inhabit quietly. You wonder why I let you in? So I may keep my earlier promise to you,” he strides to the window and looks at the lush greenery outside. “We can watch the world end together and with it, ourselves.”

“What do you mean?!” Red Skull rages.

“Had you chosen another to be your host, you might have survived, but I do not possess the gene sequence necessary to successfully process Extremis.”

“What?” He feels the Skull’s horror, the way the man writhes in his mind, struggling to escape. “But why would you order your own death sentence?”

“Who am I to stand in the way of progress? Where do you think you’re going? You have what you wished for.” If he says so with a little cruelty, it should be excused. The Skull is quite an unruly guest.

An alert sounds from his computer and he hurries to check it, worrying that perhaps there’s a complication with the launch. The countdown is continuing smoothly, mere minutes to go, but Iron Man is soon to breach the facility. 

It seems fitting that he should see his old foe on his last day. Tony Stark is a true genius unlike Red Skull. Who else could have found him twice in so short a time? It wasn’t fair though, that Tony Stark would live to see the new world, already enhanced by an older version of Extremis as he was. He wouldn’t appreciate it. So perhaps, as his final act, he would mercifully ensure that Tony Stark never saw it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for minor gore kept in from the comics

Dugan sends him the schematics of the facility as he flies over and he uses them to determine his entrance point. He can only pray he’ll be in time. With the dampener still on his anklet, he can’t even sense the technology he’s approaching, much less talk to it.

He knows he’s in the right place when he breaks through a concrete wall and sees the Mandarin. He punches a hello, then flies the man through a few walls and a window for good measure.

Seeing biohazard marked metal containers, he stops. Hope flares. Maybe he’s in time. But this can’t be all of it.

“You’re too late, Stark.” The Mandarin returns his violent greeting, delivering a blow to the neck of his suit. He cries out, catches himself on the railing and fires behind him. Too slow. 

“Airborne Extremis seeded clouds?” he asks. Just a little distraction, that’s all he needs.

“Always so astute. I’m impressed by your resourcefulness,” the Mandarin watches him.

“Keep talking,” Tony says grimly and blasts the man’s hand. It’s not a clean shot, but he gets two fingers. “I’ll just take those rings from you in the meantime.”

There’s no cry of pain. “Do you have any idea what these things cost?”

Tony watches aghast as the Mandarin pulls off his glove, revealing a now-damaged prosthetic hand. It’s familiar tech.

“Actually, I suppose you must. I bought these from your company’s medical division.” 

These, so there both the hands were fake. Where were the rings then? He starts a metal scan. Given that the prosthetics were Starktech, they weren’t going to fail too easily. This was why he’d stopped manufacturing weapons. Even his non-weapon tech was used by evil. 

The Mandarin uses his distraction to fire a light blast that Tony only just blocks. The villain does a sort of spinning kick and he sees it – there! – a glimmer of metal at the Mandarin’s back. He must have them fused to his spine. 

Close range fighting it was.

He catches end of the kick in the stomach, but his armor holds up. Before the Mandarin can move out of range, he blasts high with a hand repulsor and grabs onto the man’s shoulder, pulling him close.

“No!” the Mandarin struggles, sensing his intentions. They grapple and Tony manages to slip a finger through one, two, three, four, _five_ rings, ripping them gracelessly from the Mandarin’s back before he’s thrown free. 

The Mandarin screams with pain and rage. He lashes out and Iron Man’s slammed into the wall. A blow to his head makes him see stars. Gravity feels like it’s increasing on him, _guess he hadn’t got that ring_. The Mandarin gets a hold of his arm, wrenching it back with magically augmented strength. Tony can feel the armor starting to give into the efforts to break it. He can’t have a broken arm. Having his power dampened is a serious disadvantage. It’s not just outdated suits, but his healing factor. With his free arm he punches backwards, cracking the Mandarin across the jaw. The man falls and gravity normalises. His armor has held but his arm _hurts_.

Free, he stands over him. “Where are the missiles?”

The Mandarin cracks his jaw back into place with his good prosthetic hand. “Just before you got here I received confirmation. They’re launching now, hundreds all over the world. You lose, Stark. Humanity wins.”

“You madman!” He doesn’t even think, blasting the Mandarin with the unibeam, sending his opponent flying. Tony sinks to the floor in despair.

Think, think, think, that couldn’t be it. A weakness in Extremis. Nothing but the delivery system. In the missiles. Once fired, they would detonate, it was only a matter of _where_. In the self-replication tech. He has it. There had been a weakness in the nanocam testing. But he needs to talk to those missiles. He pulls off the armored boot and looks at the anklet.

[Pencil laser active.]

“This is going to hurt so bad,” he cringes and let the armor systems control his gauntlet. His hands shake within.

[Bisecting calcaneus.]

Agony. Bright and consuming. 

Physical. From his severed heel. 

Mental, as a world of data flooded in, backlogged by days. 

He breathes in his need to scream and holds it tightly, using it to anchor him. He had to. He had to find. [Energy signature found.] One of the launched missiles.

[Locate all matching signatures.] He commands and pants as he grips ahold of them all. Two fucking hundred. Okay. Next step. [Trace targeting center. Beijing weather command. Override.]

Demanding what he wants, what he needs from the technology is so easy again. He just has to think, exert his will. He just has to keep his head through the tormenting pain. 

[Reprogram detonation destination up 11.5 kilometres. Into the jet stream.] He breathes out shakily. He feels the connections begin to break, one by one.

“It’s over Mandarin. You’re under arrest,” he says, standing as best he can on his good foot. Thank god for the suit, it might be the only thing keeping him upright.

“There’s no way you stopped them,” the Mandarin growls.

“Didn’t have to,” he pants, keeping the pain at bay as best he can. “The nanocam tech at the basis of the self-replication and delivery system is susceptive to extreme cold. The missiles are detonating harmlessly in the jet stream, destroying themselves and their payload.”

“No!” Eyes malevolent, the Mandarin punches a hole in the metal container behind him. “Taste this!”

[Extremis detected.] Well, he knows what to do about that and thankfully, this suit is equipped. He raises his hands. [Deploy Freon stream. 100% strength.]

He keeps the stream going until it feels like he can feel the cold through the suit. The room seems foggy with the chemically induced temperature drop. He sees the Mandarin has frozen, connected to the ice where the Extremis formula had been. He doesn’t feel that bad.

[Super freeze facility before cleanup to ensure enhancile is destroyed.] He sends along to Dugan. Cleanup, and now unneeded backup, are already on the way.

So tired. Something clinks to the ground from the unmoving Mandarin. Red. Another ring? Frozen blood? It seemed unlikely. He collapses to his knees, and angles himself to fall the rest of the way towards the thing, exhausted. He reaches out a gauntleted hand to touch and finds something hard. His vision swims.

Time to pass out.

\--Doom--

He catches Lukin running out of the building and stops him. The man spits some vitriol before realizing who is talking to, and then begins wriggling like a fish, trying to escape. 

“You search for Red Skull? He remains with the Mandarin. Back there,” Lukin indicates behind him. “They’re going to end the world.”

Away from the devices in his home, Doom cannot be certain. It would be certainly uncharacteristic of Skull to behave so pathetically. Unfortunately, his little doombot had stuck to Lukin so he had lost his eyes on the inside. He debates what to do.

Lukin’s whining is annoying so he knocks him out. Then, he sends the doombot back in. Iron Man had already entered the place, perhaps he’d catch a show. The camera feed shows several human sized holes in the walls, then finally Iron Man standing up against a wounded Mandarin. It seems he has missed most the fighting. Ah well. The Mandarin bursts open a container marked with the biohazard symbol and Iron Man retaliates, deploying some supercold substance. It freezes everything, including his bot unfortunately, and he watches disappointed as ice crystals form over the camera. 

He’s just preparing to enter and mine the place for data when his armor tells him SHIELD and the local authorities are incoming. Opportunity lost, he considers taking Lukin to Latveria then decides he doesn’t wish to have such trash within his borders. If Skull surfaced again, he’d find him and pay him back then.

\--Steve--

Lukin was gone. Red Skull and Mandarin had disappeared together. It was only him left in the glass room.

He keeps watch over Iron Man as SHIELD pulls him out. His worry increases as Tony remains unconscious as the suit’s removed and his wounds are revealed. To his relief, Tony wakes up as he’s patched, though the doctors put him in a chemically induced sleep shortly after. From what the doctors understand of Extremis, time’s all that’ll be needed to restore him to health, so Tony’s moved back into his own rooms to recuperate. He’s asleep most of the time, slowly beginning to wake just long enough to be fed a little before passing out again. 

Watching Tony for as long as the room lets him, and resuming his vigil when it’s ready again isn’t an ideal existence. Once Tony recovers, Steve reasons he’ll see more of the world again. Maybe he could get used to it. It’s not as dull an existence as it _could_ be, he tries to tell himself, looking for a silver lining. 

Then he notices it. How the periods of time he can watch Tony grows shorter. In the red glass room, he’s disturbed to realize he’s growing paler. All of him, including his clothes. More and more like a ghost. 

Perhaps he’d been a ghost all along, no matter what had been said. His unfinished business had kept him around this long, and with Skull gone and Tony safe, he was fading out of existence. It seems a likely conclusion.

Which meant he should wrap up unfinished business. Say goodbye properly since he had the opportunity this time.


	15. Chapter 15

“Tony.”

Blearily, he blinks awake. The room is dim, but familiar. His body aches. His head is heavy. His eyelids are heavy too. He drifts.

“Tony!”

He blinks slowly. The voice, so familiar. He’d follow that voice to the end of the earth. 

“Please, Tony, I don’t think I…”

The voice fades. Why did the voice fade? He lets his head fall one way, nobody. With Herculean effort he jerks it up to fall to the other side. 

_Oh, it’s my bedroom._ Drowsily, he blinks. His mirror. The mirror. It’s uncovered. When did that happen? Had someone dirtied it up? He frowns at the smear. White. Wait, his sheets were white. Just a reflection? Weird how they only showed in patches in the mirror. He squints. Blue. Arc reactor? He didn’t have an arc reactor anymore though. Maybe it was paint. Not that his room was blue, unless there was some remodeling going on? A flash of red. Had someone touched it with blood on their hands? _Whose blood was it?_ he thinks with some alarm. The red blobs move from side for side. Like a. There was a word for it. He was sure there was a word for it. 

“Tony?” 

Red, white and blue. Waving. He groggily awakes and tries to sit up and pain flares harsh enough to cut off the attempt.

“Steve?” he tries. His voice sounds so weak.

“Tony,” Steve sounds relieved. He’s – Tony _thinks_ he’s in the mirror. The smudges of colour in the mirror suggest a Cap-like figure. “I thought I wouldn’t –”

“What’s going on?” His brain feels so fuzzy. Like he’s been stuffed full, but nothing’s coherent. He tries to sit up again.

“Stop Tony! Shh, you’re still in recovery.” He knows those voice colours. Alarm and concern. 

“Recovery?”

“Yes, you need to rest.”

“Rest?” Weren’t there things that needed to be done?

“Yes. For once in your life. Please.”

“Okay,” he yawns. Maybe rest was a good idea. His bed was soft and comfy. And cold. “Join me?”

“I…I wish I could, sweetheart.”

“Why can’t ‘cha?” He yawns again. “S’easy.”

“I’m leaving soon.” Why does Steve sound so sad?

“F’where?”

“I..I don’t know.”

“Y’ll be back soon though?”

“I don’t think so, Tony. Not this time.”

“Wha? Why?” He frowns. Steve should be in bed with him, keeping him warm. 

“I think my power’s almost out.”

“Battery? Told ya you should carry a charger,” he murmurs. 

“Yeah, you have,” Steve agrees with a little huff of laughter. Why’s he laughing? It wasn’t a joke. “Hey Tony?”

“Whassit Steve?”

“If this is goodbye –”

“S’not goodbye,” Tony mumbles grumpily. “No goodbye. Stay.” 

“If it is,” Steve continues gently. “It means I won’t ever get the chance anymore to give it to you properly so.” 

“Give what to me?”

“Can you remember this?”

“’member what?”

Steve swallows. “I left you a box. When you get the chance, open it? And look for the sketchbook I was using when you first encountered Extremis.”

“I need to ‘member all that?”

“If you can, Tony. For me.”

“’kay.” He concentrates for a few seconds making an electronic note. Proudly, he announces. “Done.”

“Good job, sweetheart.”

“Y’sound sad. Stoppit Steve.” 

Even Steve’s laugh sounded sad. Disgruntled, Tony narrowed his eyes at the mirror. “Stoppit.”

“I’ll try,” Steve acknowledges. “One last thing.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, Tony Stark.”

“Love you too, Steve.” He means it. Steve is the best. Best, best, best. “Stay now?”

“I’ll stay as long as I can.” Steve promises.

-Tony

He starts awake in darkness.

“Steve?”

No response. 

“Steve!”

Silence. 

His heart weighs as heavy as the night.

\--Doom--

“It appears as if you managed to vanquish both the Mandarin and Red Skull, contrary to my expectations, Stark. Unfortunately, Doom is,” he nearly spits the next word. “Unable, to locate the Captain’s mind, nevermind his body at present. It seems he has vanished. It is likely he is dead.”

He ends the message and sends it off. Repayment complete.

\--Tony--

“Good to see you up, sir.”

Tony groans as Dugan opens the curtains letting the morning sunlight stream in. He swings his legs off the bed. Huh. “My foot.”

It’s whole again. The new flesh only slightly smoother and pinker than the rest. He wiggles his toes and rolls his ankles. Full mobility. “Cool.”

“That Extremis sure is something,” Dugan agrees and dumps a magazine with Iron Man standing triumphant graces the cover of a magazine in his lap. “You looked like last year’s trash when we pulled out outta your suit and look at you now. Hero again.”

“Let’s see how long that lasts,” Tony rolls his eyes.

“And you’ll be happy to know, in the two weeks you’ve been out, all terrorism charges have been dropped, pardons all around, and you’ve been reinstated as Director of SHIELD.”

“Yay,” he says. It’s unexciting news, the regularly disrupted life of a superhero.

“Also, you’re getting some kind of award from China.”

“And they say good work has no reward.”

“Some people are interested in that clean nuke –”

“No.”

“– I told them no chance. How do you feel?”

“I saved 97.5% of the world’s population. Defeated the Mandarin. Proved people wrong.” Regained and lost the love of his life. He’d left himself a note when he was still drugged up and woozy that had triggered a half memory of Steve talking to him, _saying goodbye_. “I feel great.”


	16. Chapter 16

For the first few days, he takes it easy. He catches up on all the outstanding work from his ‘personal’ and medical absences. Falls asleep in his office instead of the lab, reinvents a filing algorithm. Works on some armor repairs and modifications. 

He does his rounds in and out of the Helicarrier. The number of people who thank him and say things like ‘I knew they were wrong about you’ and ‘It’s good to have you back!’ outnumber the ones who eye him cautiously and whisper when they think he can’t hear. Carol’s team of Avengers have grown closer without him though they welcome him back too.

Extremis had knitted his body back together. He was whole on the surface again. Too bad it couldn’t fix how hollow he felt.

Steve had gone through a lot of sketchbooks, so he had some sorting to go through there, but he knew where the aforementioned box was. He pulled it out and looked at it. Just a small rectangular box, plain and unassuming. But it was Steve’s last gift to him. _No_ , he reprimanded himself, _one_ of the last. Dream Steve might be gone but he’d been _real_ and Tony was going to cling to that and their far less regrettable last conversations.

Steeling himself, he opens the box and gently shakes out the content. A note, and a second box, interestingly wrapped. He reads the note before he can stop himself.

_They were meant for you. – Steve_

Short and cryptic. Yay. It was Steve’s writing though; he’d always recognize that penmanship.

He supposes there’s no reason to hold off opening the second box. Perhaps its contents might shed some light on the message. Still, this was it. This box had been wrapped carefully with thick, textured paper, the bow of a ribbon keeping a metal chain quartering it together. It had been drawn on, circles and stars, and on the top, right under the bow. 

Tony narrows his eyes. _Oh no he hadn’t._ Finding no way to slip it off, he reluctantly untug the bow, and slid off the metal chain. _He had_. Atop the box was a melded rendition of his old arc reactor and Steve’s shield. Artistically done, the design blended so seamlessly that if he didn’t know Steve’s art style, if he hadn’t _made_ the arc reactor with his own hands and seen it every day in his chest for so many years, he might overlooked it. _Really, Steve?_

Freeing the actual box from the paper, he has a horrible thought that maybe, it was some elaborate joke from the grave and there’d just be more and more boxes. Like a Matryoshka doll. Shaking off the ridiculous thought, he pops open the hinged lid.

Dog tags. Steven G. Rogers 

He lets out his breath. Not what he was expecting. It made sense though, Steve had been a soldier and when soldiers died, their dog tags went to their loved ones. Not that Steve had been a soldier any time recently. He fingers the metal rectangles and wonders where the chain was before realizing it had been part of the wrapping. _Creative, Steve._

He threaded the tags back onto their chain and thought about their sentimental value to Steve. It had been the one few personal items he’d had on him when he’d gone down in the ice. Steve used to wear them all the time when he’d first come out of the ice. As he’d gotten used to the modern age and his new home, he’d begun leaving them at home, only pulling them out on special occasions and bad nights. 

Tony slips the chain over his head and the tags fall against his chest. He reads over the engraved letters and finds no special message. They’re cool against his skin when he tucks them into his shirt and tidies the packaging away. The slight weight feels like a gentle comfort.

\--

Searching high and low for the sketchbook, he was beginning to think it was hiding in one of Steve’s secret hideouts and that he wasn’t going to find it without external help. Then, one of his cleaning bots chirps at him.

“What is it, buddy?” 

It opens its dustpan mouth to present him with a screwdriver and queries audibly. “Lost item?”

Recognizing where it belonged, he claims it off the bot. “Yes. Thank-you.”

The bot returned to its duties and Tony opens his bedside drawer to retrieve the toolkit within. Lying innocently beneath the set when he pulls it out was the sketchbook he’d taken out of Steve’s desk the same day he’d first found the mirror. As he didn’t remember putting the book there, he figures it had likely been tidied away there by some helpful person during his recovery. 

Skeptic that it would be the book he was looking for, he skims the pages for a date. He’d never thoroughly gone through the book, only flipped through it before, but he’d noticed in his sketchbook search that Steve had tended to date his progress. Surprised, he finds it is the one he’s been looking for. Ironic. 

Settling back against his pillows, tools forgotten, he wonders what he’s supposed to find in it.

He knows it when he sees it. There’s an increase of words interspersed with the doodles and sketches which turn into sentence fragments, a ridiculous doodle of Captain America as the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. Then a slew of text, half crossed out. 

_You’re_ Captain America  _you can do this. It’s time._

_He’ll say yes._

_Right?_

_~~Things to Remember to Say:~~ _

_~~-I want to see my tags by your heart~~ \- too lame_

_ Points to Cover _

_-I love you_

_-I’m yours for life ~~even if you say no~~ \- don’t scare him off!_

_-it’s an engagement ring but not a ring obviously (these mean more and I think you’ll understand?) - if he makes a dog joke ignore it_

_-your gauntlets get torn off a lot ~~take better care of yourself for crissakes you’re going to give me a heart attack~~ _

_-how pure should the metal not to interfere with the work you do in the lab and in the suit (ask Bruce?) – should it not be metal? We’ve been up against Magneto a lot recently, shouldn’t give him any more advantage over you – not romantic, save question for after proposal_

_-I know you’re not that keen on marriage and you don’t think a paper means much but I’d like to (if you don’t it’s okay I just want to see my ring on your finger)_

_-a real ring for when it’s final because I love your hands and it’s a good thing you don’t look through my sketchbooks much because I’ve already drawn you wearing versions of ~~my~~ our ring ~~Sam was right I am a teenage girl when it comes to you~~_

_That’s enough writing Rogers, stop stalling just do it. He’ll be back from helping Maya soon and the right time will show itself and if it doesn’t, take a page out of his book and_ engineer _it._

_Reminder: try to be less cheesey, more romantic_

What had he just read. 

Tony goes over the words again, then flips through some of the preceding and following pages. There are smiling, goateed mouths. Free-flowing lines that he can see himself in and Steve too sometimes. Arc reactors, some partially obscured by dog tags. And as mentioned, there are hands. Fingers spread out mid-gesture. Patting robots and imperiously waiting for them to deliver tools. Clasped together. A bearded chin resting on a palm. Tony compares his hands to the drawings and is taken aback to notice scars he didn’t even realize he had were had been represented. Apparently Steve had known the backs of his hands better than he did himself.

He waits for the melancholy to set in. For grief to wet his eyes and shake his shoulders. It doesn’t come. A different feeling simmers.

“What the fuck Steve.” He yanks the tags he’d been wearing for days out of his shirt and on second thought, off from his neck to better stare at them. “Were these a fucking _proposal_? Your last. The last thing you say to me, the last thing you leave me before _dying_ is an _engagement_ necklace?”

His brow tightens as he thinks back and he glares at the tags as if they were Steve. “You didn’t even want me to know. You rat bastard. You weren’t going to tell me. You were just going to leave me with these without a clue about what they really meant. And then you decide from beyond the grave that what, let’s leave Tony with the actual truth since I won’t have to own up to it anymore?”

Indignation rolling to a full boil he glares at the tags in his hand and jerks the chain back on. “Hell no. You don’t get to pussyfoot out of this. You’re not dead, nope. Not allowed. I have _questions_ you need to _answer_ , mister.”

Steve had survived a childhood riddled with illness and medical issues. He’d somehow come out better after being a lab rat. He’d survived through World War II and a plane crash into the ocean. A freezing and defrosting. Adjusted to life in a new century and fought on. He could have died so many times, but he hadn’t. So there was no way some tech and magic body-soul splitting gun had killed him. No way. Tony refuses to believe it.

\--

Days later, he’s still convinced. If the Mandarin and Red Skull had cheated death before, then why shouldn’t Steve? He’s far more deserving after all. Tony squeezes the tags hard. Even with the stunt he’d pulled.

Steve is out there and he’s going to put him back together. He just needs someplace to start. He would start at the beginning with the gun, but Doom was unlikely to help and give him the specs. Maybe Doom had helped already. In his message he said that Tony had defeated the Mandarin _and_ Red Skull. He remembered Steve warning him to be prepared to fight both villains, but didn’t remember seeing the Skull or Lukin at all. So there was a discrepancy to follow up on. Had they been there? Where had they gone?

Pulling up the digital report from cleanup, he looks over the names of the people who’d been found on site. All unfamiliar apart from the Mandarin. The facility’s security cameras had been disabled, but airport security cameras showed Lukin climbing into a private plane with the course set for China earlier on the day of the incident. External security cameras had grainy footage of Lukin fleeing the facility, but there was no sign he’d returned stateside, or even taken another flight. Tony put out feelers to locate the man and traces on his bank accounts and phone. All he could do on that front for now.

He considers who he could reach out to. Reed perhaps? He was an expert with dimensions and had different approach to tech than Tony did. Then again, he was insufferable and was still trying to patch things up with Sue. Tony shouldn’t distract him from that. And he’d want proof which Tony didn’t have. Doctor Strange might believe him, but getting an audience with him would be difficult. He’d probably have to track down one of the underground superheroes he had idea of how to find, then make up a really good story. Then, after dealing with all the people who definitely weren’t a fan of his since civil war, he’d have to pray Strange wasn’t in the midst of some battle in the mystical realms. He decides to save those options for later.

\--

He has half a breakthrough from reading Agent 13’s debrief report. She’d broken through Faustus’ brainwashing and returned to SHIELD. Currently, she was getting help to clear her mind of triggers and strengthen it against future attempts. The report was interesting, but one detail sticks out at him. She remembered Lukin had had a ‘red jewel’ on him on multiple occasions and theorized it was how the Red Skull had been exerting his influence on the man. Unfortunately, Lukin was still underground and his feelers hadn’t been able to locate him yet. When they did, Tony had some questions to ask him.

The other half comes when the report on the Extremis plot is brought to his attention again. The lab techs wanted to know what should be done with the six rings that’d been collected off him. They’d apparently finished sweeping them for dangerous compounds and taken all the readings their curious hearts desired. Though they’d been handled carefully since retrieval with respect for the powerful objects they were, it was recognized that they were the sort of objects that should be under heavier security. Anybody who tried to steal them in future would likely be powerful and gifted, no sense in making it an easy grab. 

He only remembers getting five rings, and he has a good idea of where to store them. A vault in the Negative Zone. It was definitely not a place anyone was going to stumble across, magic or not. 

Retrieving them, he finds that as he thought, there are only five actual rings. However, there’s an extra stone that had been mistaken as having broken off a sixth ring. It had read differently to the rings, according to the techs, but they thought that the majority of the power might have remained with the ring portion itself. 

Laying eyes on it, he remembers the glimmer of red on frozen floor and closing his hand around something hard. Agent 13’s report and Doom’s message to him about having stopped both the Mandarin and Red Skull cross his thoughts. Tony has a very different theory to the techs, but he doesn’t share it. After thanking them for their hard work, he secures the rings away but keeps the ruby gemstone for himself. 

\--

Unsurprisingly, under Faustus’ influence Sharon had been largely unconcerned with the details of things unassigned to her. Still, while she wasn’t _sure_ if it was the same stone, she thought it could be. It wasn’t the surefire proof Tony was hoping for, but it didn’t disprove his theory either.

Tony sits in his office and debates the seemingly innocuous stone through the clear evidence box. If this was the gem that had been in Lukin’s possession, Red Skull must have met with the Mandarin while in China, just as Steve had said. Tony didn’t remember fighting Red Skull, only the Mandarin, but Doom said he’d taken down both. The timestamps from the security footage showed Lukin leaving while Tony had been fighting the Mandarin. Had Doom made a mistake? He’d sounded certain though. Pessimistically, Doom was wrong and Red Skull was still on the loose. Optimistically, Doom was right. In that case, Tony’s recognition software was having an issue, or Lukin had gotten free. If those were the options, Tony was leaning towards the latter because his software was beautiful work that took body shape and gait among other factors into account.

If Lukin was free, then somehow, he and Skull had split up. Why? How?

Tony remembers his mindmap and pulls it up, scrutinizing the details. There. Lukin’s body didn’t have the gene sequence to survive Extremis. That was why Skull had been after Steve’s body. If Tony had been a minute or two later, he wouldn’t have been able to negate the Extremis release and Lukin, along with 97.5% of the world’s population would be dying or dead. Being at the facility before Tony, Red Skull would have learned that time was up for finding Steve’s body. He’d need a new body immediately to survive. And he’d gone for the Mandarin?

That seemed like a terrible decision to Tony, but Skull was arrogant and had probably thought he could overpower the Mandarin. From his standpoint, it was probably a logical move, survival and taking out the competition in one move. 

The stone had been with Lukin, and then had been with the Mandarin. Red Skull was the common denominator. Ergo, Red Skull travelled by gem? Or it held his consciousness? 

Tony massages the back of his neck. What was he doing trying to figure out magic? Science and tech clearly still weren’t advanced enough to be on par with it. The only quick way to get answers was to experiment. 

He weighs the box in hand, debating the wisdom of what he’s thinking of doing. It’s not the riskiest decision he’s ever made. The locks and opens the box. The ruby _looks_ harmless enough, but so did the Mandarin’s rings. 

“Please don’t let this be something I regret,” he mutters. Cautiously, he lays a fingertip on the irregular surface of stone. 

Zilch. He breathes out, unsure if what he’s feeling is relief or disappointment. He picks it up and examines it closely. An interesting cut, fairly symmetrical; polished, but could do with some buffing. No markings though or anything that suggested it had a magical purpose. He wonders if he’s wrong and this is just an ordinary ruby.


	17. Chapter 17

Fresh out of the shower, Tony flops down against the plush pillows stacked at the headboard of his bed with a moan. His day had begun sometime last night when Spiderwoman had broken in with a Skrull corpse. The unregistered superheroes who’d banded together to form a new team had ended up killing Elektra while taking on her and the Hand. Except Elektra had been a Skrull. 

Another war was beginning. He could sense it as surely as he and Reed and Hank Pym couldn’t detect the Skrulls after a full day of working together. It was alarming and frustrating and depressing. The old days had been so much simpler and straightforward. His mouth twists. He was sounding like a grandpa.

His casts his hand out to his bedside table, blindly feeling and opening the box there to clasp the contents in hand. The gem might be magic for all he knows, given his unexplainable desire to keep it close. In any case, he hadn’t had any urges to start planning for world domination so things were probably okay.

Tony opens his eyes to consider the stone for the umpteenth time. He holds the ruby up to the sunset, admiring the way the light makes it shine. Gorgeous, and somehow, lonely. It’s a strange thought to have about an object, but he accepts that his brain’s on overdrive and probably spewing nonsense. He lets himself drift, no intending to think about anything in particular.

He hasn’t had a single dream about the mirrorscape since Steve said goodbye. Why did good things have to end? They ought to be renewable, like library books and power sources. Like his body since he’d been injected with Extremis. Rechargeable devices were taken as the norm finally, but the future of technology would have power cells that wouldn't need to be plugged in and recharged. They'd recharge as they were used. Like solar or motion powered tech, but self-reliant. Or they’d utilize a source that wouldn't run out within a lifetime. That was better probably, no worries about recharging malfunctions.

Sleepy, he replaces the stone and nestles atop his sheets, too lazy to struggle beneath. It’s rare for him to be in his rooms this early in the day, but he didn’t really sleep the night before. Just a little nap, he decides, hand curling around Steve’s dog tags. The gradually waning light makes the backs of his eyelids a warm orange. He yawns, everything's so peaceful. 

At that point of unconsciousness when he's not sure if he's still awake or he's fallen asleep it comes to him. The mirror and its brightly colored gems. Complete and gleaming, like in his dreams. Steve flickering. Steve fading, bright to muted colours.

Like his battery was running out. 

The missing pieces fall into place. Steve and Lukin and Red Skull had all been in the same place. What if the place had been the stone? But now Lukin was free and Skull had disappeared and Steve. Steve was not gone. Steve was not allowed to be gone. So he was still in the gem?

Excitement makes Tony fumble his first attempt to open the box but the second time is a success. He holds it up to the still setting sun and while nothing shows, he’s not disappointed. Certainty sits in his core. 

This was, or had been, what holds Steve’s mind and it was out of battery. Steve had said goodbye when Tony was recovering, _after_ Skull had released Lukin. The gem’s juice must have run out after being disengaged from its human energy source.

The question was how to recharge it? Was it only human powered? Casting around the room for inspiration, his gaze doubles back and his breath hitches. 

\--Steve--

The thing was, the serum hadn’t just strengthened his body all those years ago. It had strengthened his mind. When he’d lost the ability to see Tony, he’d despaired. Stuck in the glass room with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs ‘til the end of time. Then, like the old adage, new doors had opened. It started with seeing other people and places when he touched the walls of his cell. Then the visuals gained sound. He suspects there is more to come. 

From only being a passenger on the journey of wherever the sights took him, he was gaining some control. With experimentation and practice, he hopes the hone the skill. He tries it, focusing on what he wants to see and touches the glass. When nothing happens, he doesn’t let himself get frustrated, thinks to himself _What would Tony do?_ He might not be a genius or have access to tech, but what’s important is Tony’s approach. He’s watched him enough over the years to have learned that failure was part and parcel with experimentation. Tony would moue when something didn’t work out before coming alight, learning from it and approaching the problem from a new angle. So Steve would stay positive too.

He’s thinking of nothing at all when he tries again. The room takes charge. 

He sees flashes of the past, and not just his own history. He sees what he calls the present, because the Tony in it matches the one he sees in the glass room. He sees the future, or maybe futures. Seeing their impermanence as they continue to shift, he thinks he finally gets what Tony feels when he’s surrounded by data. The ability to see the big picture, the fixed points, while the minor surrounding events change in the blink of an eye. How little changes lead to massive ones and how the wheel of time spins on, unflinching. 

\--Tony--

With trembling fingers he slots the ruby into the frame of the mirror. He sucks in a breath. There’s nothing to see with his human eyes, but through Extremis and his sensors, the mirror’s energy signature changes. Gradually, the mirror begins to glow, so slow that he isn’t quite certain when the aura became visible to the naked eye. The reflective surface moves like liquid silver. 

Mesmerized, he instinctively touches it, surprised to find it warm and giving. He’s not thinking when his hand slides in and his leg moves to follow. He’s standing within the mirror before he knows it.

Inky darkness envelopes him and he’s afraid to take a step. Afraid to move. Worried that he’ll fall into a neverending abyss. It doesn’t feel like he’s standing on earth at all. More like he’s standing on some sort of cool, dark gel. It ripples beneath his soles and he’s spooked into displacing his foot, feeling gingerly with his toes for safety. It ripples again and he steps and steps, tense and fearful. He thinks of Steve and the next landing feels surer, safer. He contemplates the blue of Steve’s eyes and the curve of his ears. He walks and walks until the give of gel turns to stone under his feet. 

He stops when the ripples do and there’s light now, dim and gentle. It comes from an array of multicoloured jewels above him, scattering across the sky and he looks down and sees slate rock. The mirror is before him in all its dreamy beauty and the jewel he’d placed in the physical one shines as bright as the surface. His fingertip contacts the crimson shape and he understands.

This is the last test. He doesn’t consider it a challenge at all. 

He wishes for Steve with all his heart. Pictures him with the surety of a worshipper. Steve is not perfect, he acknowledges that, for neither is he. But the way they fit together is. 

This is about one truth. That he loves Steve. That their souls are bonded together, for better or for worse. 

His hand thrusts into the mirror, reaching.

-Steve

He’s seeing visions of green skinned aliens and superheroes fighting their dopplers. Of Norman Osborne orchestrating terror in broad daylight. Of his Tony on the run, ragged and dazed.

Then there’s a yank at his sternum, like the last time, when he was moved to the room with Skull and Lukin. But this time, it doesn’t feel like falling. It feels like running high, flying, _snapping_ back in place, like he’s an elastic. 

There’s an outstretched hand. One he knows that hand better than he knows his own. Their fingers lace together and it’s the best – the first – physical touch he’s felt since dying. He follows where it leads. Trusting blindly.

He half trips stepping out from the glass room, unaware that the next step is down but he stumbles into a warm chest. Then they’re falling together. He glimpses a rainbow of outer space and twisting branches behind the face of the man he loves as they’re expelled out. They land hard together and he lies on his back, staring up at white ceiling. His body feels like a sack of rocks, heavy, like he’s been made anew.


	18. Chapter 18

He turns his head to the side and sees Steve, alive and breathing, looking back at him like _he’s_ the miracle.

“Steve?” Tony whispers. 

“Tony,” Steve voice is husky. Tony follows the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows before repeating. “Tony.”

“I’m not dreaming again am I?”

Steve’s smile slowly widens. “I don’t think so.” 

“Oh. That’s. Good. Nice. Yay! Though also what else would you say in a dream, honestly,” he rambles.

“May I?” Steve’s hand comes up to hover by his face. 

Captivated by the smile, he agrees absently. “May you what? Uh, yes?” 

The hand caresses his jaw lightly, then Steve slots his mouth is over his. He kisses delicately, giving him a chance to retreat. 

Tony kisses back as natural as breathing. It feels like coming home. Any doubt he was harbouring evaporates. This is the real Steve, no question. 

Steve makes a soft sound, edging closer and deepening the press of their lips. Tony sighs contently, surrendering. They continue for a long time. Slowly, languidly, relearning each other. Tony feels tears prick at his eyes as love overwhelms him and his next breath shudders in. 

Steve retreats minutely, concern written on his features. “Tony?” Steve’s thumb strokes over his cheek.

“I’m okay,” Tony’s voice cracks. “I-it’s just. I-it’s really you.”

“Looks like it,” Steve agrees. 

“God Steve. I’ve missed you. I l-lo,” _love you_ , he wants to say, but chokes.

“I love you too, Tony,” Steve smile blooms again and he looks at Tony like he’s someone to be cherished.

Tony feels the first tear escape and before he can stop it, he’s weeping, love and relief flowing together in a physical outpour of emotion. Steve pulls him close and he tucks his face against the bare chest. Shocked, he realizes his hands are also on bare skin.

“A-are you n-n-naked?” he gasps out and tries to back off. 

Steve holds him tight, suspiciously quiet before admitting wryly. “It seems so.”

Tony’s snicker mixes with his sobs before laughter takes over. “Oh my g-god, Steve.” He looks up to make a witty comment, only to drown in sea blue eyes. 

“Gonna do something about it?” Steve raises an eyebrow.

Oh. Hell fucking yes. Mind shorting on possibility, he crushes his mouth against Steve’s smirk. Steve responds by licking over his bottom lip and Tony lets him in, moaning at the familiar taste. Desperate to feel skin on skin, he rolls them so he’s atop, pinning Steve with his mouth. He fumbles to grasp the hem of his shirt and widespread hands run up his hips and chest as they’re exposed. He pulls his face back just enough to finish getting the top off from around his neck, but when he gets back to trying to make out, Steve seems have lost his fervor. 

Despite his concern, Tony still thinks it’s ridiculously attractive how Steve’s abs clench as he sits up and keeps him on his lap without a thought. Then he sees what Steve’s gaze has fixed upon.

“Are those?”

“Your dogtags? Yeah.”

“I had plans –”

“To propose?”

Steve hesitates. “Yeah.”

“I saw them. You told me about them.”

Steve mumbles something.

“What was that?”

“I didn’t think you’d find them,” Steve mutters, not meeting his eyes.

Tony frowns. “Well I did.”

“Ahh.”

“Does that mean…? No, you know what, I’m taking it as your proposal.”

“What.”

“And I do,” Tony says decisively before backtracking. “Wait that’s for later. Uh, yes. I accept. I accepted.”

“Yeah?” Steve looks hopeful.

“Yes. No takebacks. You got that?” 

“Okay,” Steve acquiesces before adding tentatively. “What if I want to do it right?”

“…no,” Tony narrows his eyes. “You waited ‘til you thought you were _never going to see me again_ to tell me about your intentions. You gave them to me without an explanation when you _died_. When it’d be if I let you propose again in your own time – it doesn’t bear thinking about. You know us getting married stopped the civil war in another universe?”

“Slavery?” Steve looks confused. 

“No, SHRA,” he corrects.

“Huh,” Steve takes that in for a moment and muses. “I was going to propose. Right after I scribbled that stuff in my sketchbook.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Tony bursts out, the anger that had made him determined not to give up the search for Steve rising to the surface. 

“So why?”

“Extremis,” Steve said quietly.

“What?” That wasn’t a good answer. “It saved my life.”

“I know, and I’m grateful for that,” Steve searches for the words. “But you were like a different person. When it was new.”

“I wasn’t–” he protests.

“You were.”

He thinks back seriously. His first post-Extremis memories are crystal clear. Comparing his behaviour then to now, and to before, he can see why Steve hesitated. He deflates. He’d been so taken by his new technopathic abilities and the sheer amount of data streaming into his mind. Overnight, he’d begun reacting to situations with even less concern for the human element than usual, basing his actions on pure facts and calculations. Too much computer, not enough Tony. 

“I changed,” he admits. “I’m still not the same person you knew.”

“I know,” Steve agrees. “I’ve changed too.”

“But you still?” Tony glances at the tags.

“Love you? Of course.” Steve waits ‘til Tony looks at him. “I never stopped.”

It is supremely unfair how easily Steve undoes him. His throat works hard. “I love you too,” he finally manages.

Steve smiles beatifically and all Tony can do is grin like an idiot.

\--Steve--

“How are we going to explain your being back?” Tony asks when the sky is getting light and they’ve made it to the point where sleep is an option.

“Think supervillains buy death insurance? Captain America did too!” Steve murmurs, pitching his voice like a terrible infomercial.

Tony’s forehead creases. “Was that a joke?”

“You think you’re the only wisecracking Avenger?” 

“I know but I just,” Tony begins to laugh, slowly, then harder than the joke deserved. “I haven’t heard one of your jokes in so long.”

“I like it when you laugh,” Steve comments, understating how pleasing he finds the sound. “Anyways, does it matter what’s said? Would anyone even believe the truth?”

“Death cannot stop true love,” Tony quotes after a long pause.

“I think that’s my line, Buttercup,” Steve says wryly.

“Surprised you remember.”

“It was one of the first movies the whole team insisted I watch. And super-memory,” he huffs.

“I will never doubt again,” Tony challenges. 

Steve sighs, but plays along. “There will never be a need.”

“That’s all I wanted.”

They’re quiet for long moments before Tony speaks up again.

“We’ll probably also need to. I’m not sure how but.”

“What is it?”

“If I hadn’t pulled you out of a magic mirror, I wouldn’t tell you but, I know you’re the real deal so,” his voice dips. “Skrulls. Shape-shifting aliens that have likely already infiltrated the superhero and other communities. The Avengers who’ve figured that out think I’m one, and when you show up, they’re bound to think we’re a pair.”

“Well, we are a pair,” Steve mutters. “But I understand. I think I saw this, before you pulled me out. The green-skinned aliens? Vertical chin ridges?”

“That’s right!” Tony says, surprised.

“Then I know how to stop them,” he says confidently. It was good to know his time being dead hadn’t been a complete waste. 

“You saw the future?” Tony perks up, eyes gleaming. 

“Whatever science you’re thinking of right now, stop. Sleep first,” Steve says sternly.

Tony sighs but snuggles closer again agreeably. “I still can’t believe you’re here. I’m the boyfriend – no, _fiancé_ – of a time-travelling master strategist. Who’s Captain America.”

“ _Was_ Captain America. I’m just Steve Rogers now,” he corrects with a kiss. “Good night, Tony.”

“Good morning, Steve,” Tony says cheekily before yawning. Now that was a sight Steve missed. “Bucky’ll give you back your shield, I’m sure of it. Or we’ll steal it. He did.”

Knowing Tony will protest, Steve keeps his thoughts of a mini-retirement or a change of costume to himself for now. It can wait. 

“You’ll be here when I wake up, right?” Tony checks.

“You can bet on it.” After this sleep and every one for the foreseeable future.

\--

The mirror glows and its power bleeds back into the multiverse, fading away from what Asgardians call Midgard, and the technically minded call Earth-616. The purpose for its activation has been fulfilled. The imbalance has been corrected and the soulmates who shape the destiny of planets have been reunited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos oh-so appreciated! If you find a spelling error/glaring mistake, I definitely want to know so I can rectify it! Thanks for reading <3


End file.
